ATTENTION: Every lifelong expectation addict who peaked and plateaued by 35…This is your brain on expectations…
The trauma created by the expectation trap is the reason that I am starting this post out with a disclaimer: I am by no means an expert on this subject or any other subject for that matter. As a matter of fact, I am so traumatized by committing to and failing to meet other’s expectations that I must disingenuously dissuade you from thinking of me as some type of life guru, however that is exactly the type of crap [check thesaurus to replace later] that has sent me into what I believe to be the beginnings of a premature midlife crisis. Really, if I can get you to lower your expectations for this post, I won’t delay it forever trying to put together the perfectly crafted work that might change your life forever or at least warrant me a few Steem dollars. Truth is, I am not really sure if I have fully escaped the premature mid-life crisis for sure. I am only sure that learning the simply complex task of applying common sense to life has definitely helped me to navigate it a little smoother.
The evolution of my expectations…if you wanna call it that.
I was pretty smart as a kid. Some kids were extremely gifted in sports or music, but my thing was that I could always be expected to make the honor roll. This was impressive within my small family, which consisted of mostly average adults who spent most of their time treading the line between below average and almost average. To them, it was also impressive that I got accepted into all four state colleges that I applied for (it’s still debatable whether affirmative action had anything to do with that). It was also impressive to them that I did not become a statistic by getting pregnant before receiving my high school diploma, or that I didn’t have a juvenile probation officer checking my urine whenever I missed a few days of school. You see, I became very skilled at impressing everyone in my small world by being extremely average. For years, this was enough to keep me satisfied with myself as a responsible member of the family line. I was breaking the chains of bad choices that had plagued my family for generations. Although they never articulated this fact, they were always sure to let me know how their examples of what-not-to-do ultimately contributed to my overall contribution of mediocrity. If this was the only set of expectations that I would run into throughout my life, my next steps of marriage before babies, choosing caffeine (instead of alcohol or cocaine) as my drug of choice, graduating online college, and becoming a charter school teacher, would surely blow them away. The part about me being smart as a kid was not a part of this whole deception, and I fully understood that I was receiving undeserved praise about 80% of the time, however, I loved the recognition that resulted from meeting the expectation way too much to out myself. The problem with being an expectation junkie is that you make habit of the whole need to meet them, no matter who or where they come from.
After you meet the expectation of being mediocre, what’s next?
So once my family had decided that I “made it” when I was only 23, I needed to find other expectations to meet. So I decided to explore my own expectations for myself. I had done some growing up over the years, and had witnessed extremely ordinary people go on to do extraordinary things. So I eventually caught the why-not-me bug, and convinced myself that I could do something great in my lifetime. This became the expectation. Not only was it the backdrop for my awe-inspiring biography that would surely be written someday, but it was the expectation for every single thing that I did while I was on my way there. I had to be the Mrs. Clever of all moms and the type of teacher who inspired hallmark movies. I had to be Rachel Ray in the kitchen, Pam Anderson in the bedroom, and Oprah among my friends.
Is being great over-rated?
Although I did all of this in the era of “do you, and screw what others think,” I desperately needed the validation that came from meeting expectations. If it meant no sleeping, no eating, no complaining, no saying no, no vulnerability, no authenticity, no genuine joy and laughter- that’s just the way it had to be. I was dead set on being a deliverer, and the people around me instigated this fight by saying things like, “You’re a life-saver,” or “I don’t know what we would do without you.” Sometimes people came right out with it and said, “This is great!” Coincidently, most of this kind of talk was used to compliment something I did, not necessarily who I was as a person. For most of my life this was okay because I unintelligibly decided that I was great as long as I was doing great things. Truthfully, I never felt great figuratively or literally, and I secretly spent most seconds of the day trying not to choke on the things that I really wanted to do and say.
Have you visualized how your mental breakdown will go down?
Not a day went by without me recognizing that I would inevitably fall off the deep end eventually. So I spent most days just trying to put it off a little longer. Sometimes, I even visualized what my breakdown would look like. I would probably end up snapping at work like one of those people on TV who airs everybody’s dirty laundry in the staff meeting before turning over a few tables, and then making a grand exit. Or worse, I would be that teacher who reintroduces corporeal punishment on a foul-mouthed student as another student Snapchats it for the world to see. Nine times out of ten, I would probably be that wife who all of a sudden goes on strike from everything adult-like, and spends her days playing Candy Crush Saga when she isn’t stalking the Facebook timelines of old high school classmates. More often than not, most people will snap without even knowing it. I believe that the moment you decide that it’s not worth being fair to yourself, is the moment any chance of living authentically goes out the window, and you end up doing really crazy things like speeding in parking lots.
The reality is this: There is a road toward greatness, and as long as you’re in the parking lot, you are not on your way there. The purpose of a parking lot is to provide a place for you to stop when you no longer need to drive, when you’re ready to get off the road and out of the vehicle. No matter how many times you speed around it, you will continue to find yourself in the same place. So you might as well park, right?
Is it possible to back out of the Expectation Trap?
This is what I almost did until I realized that although I might be parked, I could still back out and find the exit to get back on the road toward true greatness. Don’t let a good parking spot fool you. The reality is: as long as you are parked, you are not on the road toward true, rewarding, authentic greatness.
If you are reading this to find out if you are headed in the wrong direction, you probably are if you feel the need to be great at everything, but secretly know that you suck at about 8 of the 10 things that you strive to be great at. If you know that you are only truly great at 2 of the 10 things that you are obligated to do on a daily basis and you’re okay with that, you’re doing a heck of a lot better than most of us.
Currently, I’m am no longer trying to be great at everything, and truthfully, I’m not really great at any of the things that I am obligated to do on a daily basis, but I’m average at most of them. The walls haven’t come down, everyone is surviving, and every now and then I am blessed enough to experience a genuine deep-down-in-your-gut burst of laughter. This post is not being written to encourage everyone to settle for being average, it is mostly to help you to avoid the chokehold of fulfilling unnecessary expectations. My story would be so much better, if I had to learn this lesson the hard way, by surviving a life threatening condition that allowed me to see what really matters in life. But I didn’t learn my lesson the hard way, I learned it the long way. A series of unfolding seemingly average occurrences and realizations.
So if you expect an emotionally gripping tale about a women who has to come face to face with her lowest low in order to avoid becoming a casualty of the early midlife crisis, stop reading now, **THIS POST WILL NOT MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS. ** However, if you are pretty average like me, and you are seeking to identify with what most average people go through to overcome thinking and working themselves into a midlife crisis, then by all means, keep reading my posts. I MIGHT MEET YOUR EXPECTATION. No guarantees here. Sorry.
I SEEcars speeding in parking lots.
I THINK that they’re trying to beat others to the best spot.
I WONDER where are they expected to be, or who's expecting them, and if it’s worth hitting a right-of-the-way entitled pedestrian, or worse, another car? J/K : )