OSHO: Stop fulfilling expectations of others & Learn the art of happiness

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Stop fulfilling expectations of others, because that is the only way you can commit suicide. You are not here to fulfill anybody’s expectations and nobody else is here to fulfill your expectations. Never become a victim of others’ expectations and don’t make anybody a victim of your expectations.

This is what I call individuality. Respect your own individuality and respect others’ individuality. Never interfere in anybody’s life and don’t allow anybody to interfere in your life. Only then one day you can grow into spirituality.

Otherwise, ninety-nine percent of people simply commit suicide. Their whole life is nothing but a slow suicide. Fulfilling this expectation, that expectation… some day it was the father, some day it was the mother, some day it was the wife, husband, then come children – they also expect. Then the society, the priest and the politician. All around everybody is expecting. And poor you there, just a poor human being – and the whole world expecting you to do this and that. And you can’t fulfill all of their expectations, because they are contradictory.

You have gone mad fulfilling everybody’s expectations. And you have not fulfilled anybody’s. Nobody is happy. You are lost, wasted, and nobody is happy. People who are not happy with themselves cannot be happy. Whatsoever you do, they will find ways to be unhappy with you, because they cannot be happy.

Happiness is an art that one has to learn. It has nothing to do with your doing or not doing. Instead of pleasing, learn the art of happiness.

Osho, The Discipline of the Transcendence, Vol. 1, Talk #2