Expectations: Of the People

I feel this synonym list works very well when it comes to what people expect from us, because it comes in so many forms. People just “want” the best for us, people “fear” the worst of that decision, and people “assume” we’re doing one thing and not another. Media just appears (only later to reign) and words are just representative of the numerous motivations that go into peoples’ expectations. If I had to pick two prepositions to relate people and expectations, it would be “by” and “from” – expectations set “by” people and expectations “from” people. 

Expectations can be set by people before us: friends, siblings, students or girlfriends before us who did or didn’t do certain things. It seems there’s always tension when we challenge expectation, quietly or loudly. It then brings up a question of should we change? We’re warned never to change for anyone…but, what if it’s a good change? Is the issue regarding the principle of change then squashed or proven?

Is it something we would do even if we weren’t with them?

Is it something we see validity in?

Is it showing honor and respect?

Can we modify it to a compromise? 

These questions—and answers—have guided me in deciding how far to “grow.”  

Expectations can be set by people around us: family friends’ children achieving alongside or above us, our socioeconomic environment that has built the infrastructure to feed us into certain levels of education, occupations, and income, and the culture we grew up and/or live in. This could be ethnic or religious culture. But, I’m also thinking of our personal, micro cultures. Mine is composed of small-town living with city sky-rise dreams where college is expected but we’re still applauded when we follow our destiny. One shared facet of this culture is being thankful to have access to education whether it’s in a nation that offers free, quality public schooling or not having to take out loans for what comes next…and simultaneously knowing that I’d endure the same slice (and what would be a whole pie WITH whip crème) if I did what my best friend did; for me, not going to college isn’t an option. Thankfully, I do absolutely love it and enjoy it; from the smell of textbooks to the inked feedback I wait for on my ten page papers. It’s the school decision where I get to personalize my life and make it my own.   Yet, I silently feel that heavy weight of expectation and see the track and path that external expectations have laid out for me. 

I’m often reminded of my expectations when I run into people; the common questions of catching up include school, my writing, and “Are you dating anyone?” or “How is X?” I like these questions because they make me that much more accountable to the things I said I was going to do (and do them), show me people were actually listening and remembering me, and inspire me to wait for nothing less than an amazing relationship to report back. It’s also a boost when I can confirm those things they were expecting of me; fulfilling expectation feels good because we receive that praise and/or elude that harsh/subtle/silent criticism of not coming through. 

But, who likes to answer questions that force them to admit failure? My school choice didn’t work out, “No, nothing yet, just still sending query letters to agents!” or having to admit a break-up and the subsequent tagline you have to cover with because there’s not enough time to explain and give them the full story. I remember when one of my best friends decided college wasn’t for her and in one evening, three people asked the same question, holding the same expectation: “Well, maybe you’ll want to go back later!” Despite the two different educational paths we’re on, I really hope we’re similar—or, rather, I hope I’m just like her to hold myself with such assurance and courage in the face of defying expectation. People’s reactions didn’t send her feet scampering back onto that campus, but planted her that much more firmly in her decision to soar into her career. 

These expectations from people are like a maze: wanting to run the perfect course and get to the exit in the shortest amount of time and most intelligently, while not crashing into any walls (mistakes). It’s also a maze in what we choose to share and omit from certain people. Do you ever have certain friends who get the whole truth and others who get abridged, cropped, and cut versions in order to keep their expectations? 

Why don’t we want to admit our rebellion against that which is their expectation if it’s our decision?

Because sometimes we know certain decisions are mistakes and trust us! we don’t need anyone else to confirm that anymore…! And I’m sorry, but it takes too much energy to convince someone I’m happy in my life, why I’m happy, and am I sure I’m happy? Yes—it’s my life and sometimes there’s no need for analysis.  

The bottom lines is it really doesn’t feel good to get judged, especially when it’s something we’re happy about. Some friends wonder why I keep so much to myself and it’s because I store up those things in my heart so no one can belittle them; they stay perfect and whole without birthing them into my conversation and put them at a guaranteed risk for enduring the measurement of what other people think. 

When we face their expectation and don’t measure up on their number line, we look like a bad person or less than who they thought we were. Thus, it’s just a lot easier to skip over something we’re not obligated to tell them. Ahh, the beauty of language and privacy of our minds. And even more glorious is the truth that it is not his, hers, or their life—but mine, one that is only obligated to the one I’ve given it to. 

Expectations are the things set before us that we are obligated and supposed to follow. We can create them ourselves, manufacturing what we've observed together with what we believe...BUT should we lack that within us, no worry--there's never a shortage of what people think we "should" do.

I. Whatever You Do...OWN IT!

During my last two years of high school, I was in a program called Running Start which allows juniors and seniors in Washington state to attend their community colleges and earn dual credit for high school requirements and college courses. When I heard about this opportunity as a freshman, I instantly knew it’s what I wanted my upperclassmen years to look like.

One April day of my senior year, I got an invitation to an awards ceremony at the high school for being a graduating senior in the top 10%, GPA-wise, in the state. I was really excited to get this, especially having completed the past two years by professor’s grading rubrics, navigating higher education administration, and the corresponding two hours of homework per credit/a week! 

Later that night, one of my closest friends picked me up for dinner. During the conversation, she started to say something, and then hesitated. When she finally spit it out, she told me that some of my friends had basically made up a joke about me and essentially held this attitude of “who am I when I don’t even go the school anymore.” 

Me: who’d never said one cruel thing behind any of their backs; me, who didn’t even know some of them, but apparently through my friends, they knew me; me, who did this program for herself and didn’t see the big deal; me, who had no idea where freshman and sophomore year went along with all the fun and friends that had gone now with.

“I made it more of a big deal than it was, I’m sorry,” she said, trying to clean-up the mess. But, it was one of those times when you go to clean-up the mess and you end up spreading it all over the place. Because, this wasn’t the first time my high school friends had gotten on me for Running Start; every time it was a claim to joking, but behind it was actual weight. With college—even community, as the social status gives it a misconception—came five hours of math, every night, seven days a week in my fall term, for example, and less and less time at high school events as the months went on. In addition, growing up without being allowed to have social networking really put up its own iron curtain between then and now. Thus, this comment was the ugly cherry on top of a dish that had several scoops already. 

I woke up the next morning, still weighted down by their thoughts about me and everything I thought I’d been doing right for the past year. No doubt I knew it would be different, but I had no idea the connection from my high school would be cut this severely that I felt nothing when electronic literature about graduation came to my distant e-mail. Like their thoughts, I really didn’t feel like I belonged in my graduating class of 2012. 

My thoughts came to a halt when my mom quietly came through the door and came to sit on my bed; I had uncomfortably relayed their words to her after I’d gotten home from dinner, or sitting-with-a-plate-full-of-food-before-you-in-the-evening-but-suddenly-too-sick-to-touch/want-anything. With tears, she was devastated that they would make me feel like I didn’t belong. 

“You had to watch (ex-boyfriend) and (girl-he-left-me-for) every day sophomore year, you held your grace under fire, you are just as much a part of that school as they are, you have every right to be there!” 

Laying there static, I knew she was right; my face didn’t change as my cheek still hadn’t left the pillow, but my mind was moving to all sorts of uncomfortable, hurt places. And that’s when I realized why I really wasn’t going—it was them. I let them make me feel inferior. Not only was that awards ceremony a moment for me to shine, but really, it was a bravo to my parents, an illustration of them. 

And, I would let these now-acquaintances keep ME and all I knew I wanted to become and always was from the award *I* earned? 

How dare my sacrifice—two normal years of high school, my time, my energy, my absence up on that high school on a hill—be wasted; that was basically giving in to what they were saying and I walked away with nothing in the end! How could I let these people stop me from letting my parents celebrate their daughter and my sister, her own?   

I never understood it before, but I finally figured out how you “let” someone make you feel a certain way. This “let” is automatic, because I didn’t give them permission; no, this thing sat down on me and hasn’t moved. Rather, this “let” means are you going to allow the inferiority to sit OR are you going to fight back against it? Are you going to challenge the inferiority? 

I’m so thankful to say I did. I found the opposite of that now outsider position Running Start put me in and changed the channel of that inferiority into strength: I stood proudly that evening as the ONLY full-time (all my classes taken through) Running Start student who received that award for my GPA; it survived and was earned by college grading, not weighted by AP classes or accomplished by busy work in regular classes. I stood there proudly, claiming my right to be there in this school I loved so much—and filled with even more pride for my family decorated in the stands who knew it too.

This was absolutely the lesson I was supposed to get from this experience. Like a follow-up question to see if you really learned the material, I was tested in this category of owning it: throughout this school-wide ceremony, this sophomore girl had ended up getting chosen for three different category awards that evening. On her fourth time up, I heard a guy in our student section say something to the effect of, “She’s up there, again?”

I took that in, already knowing my new, passionate response:

You. Go. Girl. (:

Good for her! I didn’t know her, but I was beyond proud of her. She wasn’t expecting these awards and flaunting them, she was humble and you could tell she hadn’t done the work that goes into gaining four awards just for her college application. She was real. 

That was the day I lost my seeds of discrediting others. I will not sip from the chalice of Haterade.  

Whatever you do, don’t let ANYONE take it away from you. Be proud of what you accomplish; as long as you’re not hurting anyone or being unjust, don’t apologize for, downgrade, or hide your achievement. There’s such a sense of self when you make no excuses or addendums for who you are or your decisions; right or wrong, own it. Apologize or stand firm in the right thing, but own it!  People really do try to put you down when they see you going up; it’s something they don’t have, reminding of them of the success they want. But, that is a problem within themselves and unfortunately, you involuntarily got caught up in their side effect. 

They didn’t sacrifice, work, or earn it—

YOU did. 

Running Start has become my greatest strength and there are no more tributaries of apologies for it; all subsidiaries of it through playing it down or regretting it have been closed. 

“Don’t you worry your pretty little mind/people throw rocks at things that shine…” 

~ "Ours," Taylor Swift