Rights and duties

Interesting comments on rights, duties, expectations.

The Gita says, do your duty without any expectation of reward. So what another does or does not do should not concern you. But if you look forward to his or her doing something, that is an expectation. Failing to do something is that person's lookout.

Worrying over children not doing something, which we think they ought to do, falls in the category of an expectation (of a reward for what you have done to them, which was your duty).

Take the display of affection or indifference with equanimity. That is the real meaning of Vaanaprastha--not being affected by what happens around you. However, this is not total withdrawal, which is the next stage, Sannyasa.