In today’s corporate, capitalistic world there has been a lot of stress on finding happiness and the reason for being alive. This may be shocking but this actually a very old idea. At some point, humans didn’t like the simple answers they were finding and thought that life has to be more than simply existing. This could possibly be where expectation was born.

In the times of the Vedas, humans thought the purpose of life was to bow to the sun and perform their duties. People retreated to the forests to chant and bring praise to the Sun. The sun performs its duty every single day without any day off, any sick days or feelings of being under appreciated. Could imagine a day where the Sun said, “I don’t feel like working today. I’m taking the day off.”

Entire power grids would not collect energy for electricity. People would be confused and probably panic because the order of things would be in disorder. Animals would act strangely as nocturnal animals would not know when the night ended and the day began. Everything that we knew it to be would be in question.

Our purpose is also our duty. However, we often associate our purpose with happiness and then turn around to complain about the very thing that brings us that very happiness. What brings us happiness will also bring us pain if we have an expectation or attachment associated with that purpose. A duty is something that you do regardless of the gratitude you receive or the feelings you feel while performing that duty.

Since your duty is also your purpose, it should only serve 5 things. Yourself, your family, your society, your nation and your higher power are the only things that purpose and duty should serve. If you are finding yourself starting to have angst in performing your purpose or duty, start looking at what you are expecting to get out of doing this act. I will bet that your finding will be that you expect a ‘Thank you’ or some form of recognition. If that is what you find realign and remind yourself of why you wanted to do it in the first place.