Whenever I sit down at my trusty laptop with an idea for something to write about here, the first thing I do is look for a picture on Google which I hope will help further illustrate the point. And because I have still retained a percentage of my inner perfectionist, I can sometimes spend longer looking for the right picture than I do on the accompanying piece of prose to come out of my head.
This isn't one of those times and I'm glad about that, because I think this comic sums up beautifully one of the things I'm most concerned about as I continue through this process.
Expectations. Both yours and mine. For the sake of argument and nothing more, let's start with yours.
I have no idea what the expectations of those around me are, but were I to venture a hypothesis, I think it would break down something like this:
• 20-25% are hoping I succeed in getting myself put back together right and will be totally supportive.
• 10-15% are expecting me to fail completely because hey, we've heard this before, Dev. Why should this time end any differently than the others, hm?
• and the remaining 60-70% are casually interested but emotionally indifferent about it.
Now bear in mind this is a hypothesis, which for those who may have forgotten from middle school science class is an educated guess, with the em-PHA-sis on guess. I'm only going by what I know, based on what I've experienced until now, so I'm fully aware of the traditional caveat of advertising pitchmen in this exercise, "Your results may vary."
I also know I live in a world where it's a seemingly foregone conclusion that people are incapable of either minor change or profound evolution. It adds to the overall feeling of misanthropy which seems to permeate our present lives because if we cannot get people to bend to our expectations of who we hope they will be, whether as a lover, friend, relative, acquaintance or even co-worker, it becomes another case of not being able to get them to do what we want. As a result, trust is often strained or broken, explanations for why those expectations were not or could not be met are ignored or brushed aside as cheap excuses and those relationships become irreparable.
Here is the bitch about trying to meet other people's expectations, though. Whether you realize it or not, 99% of the people you meet in this life cannot meet them, no matter how hard they try. Sorry, but we can't and it sure as hell isn't for lack of trying.
The reason why most people fail to meet expectations is because as we get older, the bar keeps getting raised as result of all the times we've been burned by all those people whom we let into our lives because we thought they met or even exceeded them. Then over time, we find that they really haven't or else they're not able to keep up with our changing expectations and inevitably they are discharged in the hope someone better will come along.
I became such an unabashed and insufferable perfectionist because the only way I ever thought I would be accepted and ultimately loved by anyone was to do whatever was necessary to meet those expectations. And often my own expectations were so far ahead of what the people in whose company I wanted to remain in had for me, that it usually led to me alienating them by trying way too hard when I didn't have to.
Before his death in 1973, Bruce Lee often spoke with disdain about his first major foray into Hollywood when he played Kato on the TV show, The Green Hornet in the mid-1960's. While the role brought him money and popularity, he always said he felt like "an artificial being" because he spent all his time trying to live up to other people's expectations of him, the producers, directors, sponsors, executives, etc., rather than just focusing on what he as an individual would and should do through his own expectations for himself based on his own self-knowledge.
It's in our human nature to have certain expectations for who we will ultimately spend our lives with and I am no different in that aspect than you who is reading this now. I'm not. Because I've had such ridiculously high expectations of myself for so long, I've also expected the people I associate with to meet them in one way or another, and that also is unfair.
Rather than worrying about setting a bar for someone or for ourselves, how about we just let the people in our lives be people? I, for one, have had enough of expectation, either self-imposed or mandated by others. For right now, I think I'm better off just figuring out how to be me and all that comes with it, rather than trying to fit myself into another mold that I'm not really tailored for.
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