great expectations...

The most frequent cause of each historical downfall has been the possession of unreasonably high expectations... the Don Quixote-esque fantasies.... the misty dreams that will never culminate into tangible reality. Mythology has a host of examples that can strengthen the strong statement made previously... In the Ramayana, Ravana's sister wanted to romance Lord Ram, he cut off her nose (metaphorically, in my opinion), it led to the burning of Lanka and the demise of Ravana's rule... In Greek mythology, Hades, the feared God of the Underworld, kidnapped Persephone, the enchanting daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Goddess of the harvests), with a similar inclination. Demeter was so devastated that she transformed all fertile land to barren fields. After six months, Hades was forced to send back Persephone, albeit temporarily, after which the harvest season resumed on earth once more. This is how the Greeks have explained the phenomenon of seasons in their mythological texts. Of course, the fantasy of possessing Persephone did not destroy Lord Hades... but we mustn't forget, Hades was the ruler of the Underworld and a God in his own right... were he a mere mortal, I shudder to think what Zeus and Demeter would have done to him... one lightning bolt from the former, and Hades would have quite literally been toast!

History, too, is fraught with supportive evidence of this fact...if Adolf Hitler had excluded the erstwhile USSR from his formidable plans of victory, he might have been able to ensure that the rest of Europe would converse only in German even in the 21st century...Alexander the Great, too, died in the midst of his ambitious conquests among exhausted troops and a mutiny against him...

Closer to the current day and age... George Bush attacking the Muslim world (Afghanistan...perhaps justified...Iraq???) and subsequently (it took an extra term in office... I seriously wonder why!) was forced to abdicate his seat of tyrannical and absolute power...
Mythology, history, international politics, business... when they all so vehemently fortify my argument that unreasonably gigantic expectations are the last great feelings to be experienced prior to an imminent ruin, why should we encourage ourselves to harbour such emotions... the steeper the peak, the sharper the fall... and to add to the alarming speed of sudden descent, the more effort one devotes to flail one's limbs about in desperate attempts to take off once again, the more smug and derisive are the expressions on people's faces that you swoosh past on your way down...taunts-jeers-hopelessness-crash-and-burn!!!