THERE WILL NEVER BE A FIRST NIGHT AGAIN……..........

If the pleasure is more in the hunt than in acquisition, and anticipation is far more exciting than fulfillment, why does one seek a culmination of desire at all?


A friend was most flustered when after the first night of honeymoon, she found her new husband reflective and somewhat depressed. Upon prodding, his answer was, “I love you more than ever, but it upsets me that there will never be a first night again with you ever again…..”

He explained to her how he had anticipated and looked forward with great intensity to their first time together. And now that it was behind them, he felt a bit lost….almost as if he had lost something precious. Weird? Romantic? Yes, a bit of both, but doesn’t it happen to all of us at some point or the other? We tend to get so caught up in the anticipation that not only do we forget to enjoy the present moments but are at a total loss once we achieve what we desired!

It is true that the thrill of anticipation never does quite match the realization. And some of the most powerful experiences in life are those that never meet fruition. In fact, according to a theory called the Zeigarnik effect, there is a psychological tendency to more vividly remember an uncompleted rather than a completed task. Memories are more vivid where the agenda has not been completed.

A gaze frozen in time can rekindle romantic memories through a lifetime, far more than if it had been a tangible reality. Indeed I do still recall the thrill of the furtive glances sent my way by an unnamed boy way back in the school bus. In that entire year of going back and forth from the school, we looked but never exchanged a word with each other, nor knew each others names!

Think of when you receive a gift. The highpoint is the moment just before the wrapping comes off. Once opened, the gift becomes a mundane part of life.

Or the act of lovemaking. All the pleasure, the trembling excitement is part of the anticipation. Poised on the edge of the precipice, fevered passion can only possibly take a downswing from here onwards…..

All your life you hanker after those solitaires, enjoying plenty pleasurable moments anticipating the moment you will own them. The moment comes and goes—and suddenly those solitaires are a possession, a reality of your everyday existence. What then?

Soon enough you hanker after something else! For it’s that hankering that gives you the adrenaline shots more than the acquisition.

If the pleasure is more in the hunt than in the acquisition, and anticipation is far more exciting than fulfillment, why does one seek a culmination of desire after all? It is at the point when we are poised on the brink of fulfillment that life’s most intensely pleasurable moments reside—when our desire is just to be fulfilled. Chocolate tastes the best between the first bite and just the moment before we swallow it—and then….it’s over, leaving behind a lingering guilt! There is a deep intensity in that one moment just before the anticipation takes the shape of reality. Were it possible to string together those moments, the awesome intensity would be unbearable!

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” said Robert Louis Stevenson. Living on the edge of discovery, to be poised on the verge is far more thrilling than the plunge itself.

But so focused are we on the destination, and so conditioned to be goal-oriented that we forget to enjoy the moments of expectation that awaits us on the brink of fulfillment. Right from childhood are we taught the importance of focusing on and achieving our goals. We are never told that what matters is excellence—not perfection of culmination. Seldom is a child taught to enjoy the journey as he goes along. Living on the edge of discovery, standing poised on the verge of achievement is always far more pleasurable than the achievement itself. That’s the lesson we all come across again and again in life…….

Would that love forever retained the thrill of anticipation and never become a harsh reality: would that the moment just before those solitaires are touched remained frozen in time: would that the gift remained just one fold beyond the wrapping paper……….