Let's have a chat about...expectations!
(Quote by Iyanla Vanzant)
Today's post should have been about the design I did for a good friend of mine and fellow blogger over at Lovely Little Luxuries, yet due to most recent events, which is me finding out that I will most probably have to repeat a year, I decided to start a short, monthly series called Let's have a chat about... Each month there would be a different, hopefully, relatable topic. So as you may have figured out by now, we're starting the series with expectations.
I think first and foremost, we are always under the expectations of our parents, and family members. We have all been to those family lunches where the first question is either about a partner or about your education. If you've been in that situation raise your hand now. Mine is already raised up high. I think one of the reasons why I decided to get a degree was because I knew how important it was to my mother, and since my heart wasn't 100% involved in it, I didn't pass all the exams. Of course there are other factors, which I won't mention just yet, as it's something that I'm still trying to understand myself, and it takes time to figure things out sometimes. But lately I've been thinking just how much pressure we're all under by expectations from different people around us. You have your parents wanting for you to get a degree, or asking about future grandchildren, and so forward, but we also have our friends who sometimes have the highest expectations, and none of those are badly intended, however they put us under pressure.
For a few months now I have been telling myself that I should not be a victim to these things, that I should stand up for what I want and what I expect from my life, however I realised it may not be that easy. Just imagine the disappointed stare in your mother's eyes when you didn't reach her expectations, sometimes even such a small task as to doing your chores, and we all know that the stare just gets stronger as the importance of the expectation rises. In the blogosphere I am surrounded by people who are doing their own things, they managed to grow their blogs into small (or big) businesses and it's because they stood their ground and just did what their heart was telling them to. And yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but that's how it is, right?
Sometimes we should say that simple NO. And stand by it. I said no a hundred times, yet I never properly stood by it and just went with it. For starters, I always said that I will never go to college because I am not the type. And I still believe that I am not the college type, being forced to study for grades is just not my thing, and I was never good at it. Maybe it's because I hate feeling forced to do something, and the grading system isn't always fair, as we all may know. We can be better than our grades, we are better than our grades. What I'm trying to say is that I have said no to college many times, constantly, but at the end I still enrolled because my mother expected me to. And I'm 24 years old, I should be able to stand my ground and live my life as I want it to.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we're 16 or 27, we all sometimes fall under other people's expectations. And if you say that you never did, then you my friend are lying to yourself. We've all been there. Period. I was fascinated by the quote above by Iyanla Vanzant, that says: Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your authentic self. And that brings me to my final point in this online rant, which is our HIGH expectations of ourselves. Have you ever seen someone succeeding in something and heard the voice in your head say: "Well, if he can do it, why can't you?" And fell under the pressure of your own expectations, just because you were comparing yourself to someone else. You never know their full story, and there is no point in comparing your life with someone else's, as it's just something that is never comparable, ever.
I will end this by saying that yes, sometimes expectations can be good and are a force that pushes us forward, but sometimes those expectations can hold us back from reaching our full potential. They can murder our creativity, and leave us miserable and doing something that we don't enjoy and aren't very good at. It's difficult to say no to people you care about but sometimes it just has to be done for our own good.
My last piece of advice would be that you just have to be very upfront about it, no beating around the bush, as it will only make matters more difficult. Honesty sometimes really is the best policy (and sometimes it really isn't), so just say NO, and stand by it. I still have to learn how to stand by it, as I already learned how to say no.
How do you deal with other people's expectations? If you have any tips & tricks, please share in the comments below.
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Lifestyle
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