Meeting Expectations from Within and Without
Do you know where those expectations are coming from?
In all our lives, we have expectations to live up to.
As children, your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, religious figures, and others you encountered had expectations of you. Some were utterly reasonable and even massively valuable — share your toys, say please and thank you, be kind and considerate, listen when someone is talking to you, and so on.
When you left childhood behind, you now added meeting the expectations of lovers, friends, bosses, coworkers, and even unseen elements of your societal collective consciousness. A lot of these expectations, however, were less reasonable and valuable — give me all your time and energy, give until it hurts, work harder, vote this way or suffer, and so on.
What we tend not to realize is how all those outside influences and expectations create internal expectations. It’s almost insidious how the expectations of others, experiences you have, and the world around you become your own.
And, what’s even more insidious, is how many of them are not, in truth, your own.
What does that mean? What you expect of yourself is often not about yourself. It’s about making an impression or doing for…
