The power of Expectation

Hi folks, today i'm bringing personal topic once again, i will write something motivational, or demotivational, or just something people already know, depends on perspective. I am an enthusiastic life observer sometimes, and i do care about psychological thingy, and personality developments.

This post will be asking you lot of questions, but you answer it yourself, or you can share it below (in comment section) if you interested :)

Expectation

courtesy of google search

From the beginning, the moment we were born, or even before we were born, usually people already expect us to be A, B, C, so on. If not our parents, others do. So basically we can't avoid them being there in the first place. We've been living with it, some people need it as motivation, some treat it as great pressure, some other doesn't give a fuck, or choose to not think about it to save energy.

Interested with the topic? Read on! ;)

What people expect about you?

Let's talk about family first, or if you don't live with one, then people that lives around you, close to you emotionally or physically, people who raised you. I'll refer them as "parent".

Every parents expect differently toward their kids. Every family members expect something to others. Some parent hopes their children to inherit their business, wealth, education levels, ambition, etc. Some parent hopes their children to overcome financial hardships, even get revenge (just like in the movies -.-) to someone or to something bigger like a family, community or sect, a country, and so on. Some expects children to be at least can take care of their parents in future. Some just let the kids do what they want, at least they don't become bad guys. I guess that's all related to the reason why people wants a kid in the first place, but let's skip that for now.

"Boy, you must be a smart and successful person, therefore study hard, make me proud."
"This kid is talented, I bet she will become successful someday."
"Dear, we are very poor that we're struggling to pay your school fees just to make our future better."

Sounds familiar?

I think not few case either that people seems to be "just do whatever you like I'll support", but in reality it's far different from it. They expected A but say B, or they expected the kids to expect their true expectations.
How fucked up is that?

They can add more expectations in future as the former expectations got fulfilled. Just like collecting a virtual medals by completing a quests or achievements, one done, and another one come out endlessly.

"You got A? You're indeed my child. Now I want you to B. I know you won't disappoint me."
"You can get A so why you can't just get B, it's not that hard. It's for YOUR own good"

Questions:

• Really? Is it really for yourself?
• Do you really want to achieve what people expect you to do?
• Are you happy living on people's expectations?
• Are you just scared to disappoint them?
• Are you okay to be frowned upon by someone, your family, or even.. lot of people outside?
• How much do you care about this matter?
• Have you ever think about it?

How do you see them?

From my point of view, since we can't avoid expectation, it's just a choice between [we care] and [we don't care] about it, or [both care or not care].

1. We do care.

So we (consciously) choose to care, or we can't just get careless about this, or we still have too much time dealing or giving a fuck on how people talking bad about us out there.

How expectations will affect our life?

A. Trust
What is trust?

trust
noun \ˈtrəst\

: belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.

 
How do you start to trust people? I think it's either you know this person from a long time and know they are trustworthy. You expect them to behave like you believe they will be, right?

The same thing goes to ourselves, do you need to get trusted by people? I think every social beings do. Personal relationship started off with trust.
"Will this guy be a good friend, or he just want something from me?"
"Would she keep my secrets if I share my personal problem?"

Promises also made of expectations. People expect promises to be kept. If we don't care, no one will ever want to hear our promises again, same goes with your words. Do you often promise something to people?

Business, do you start business with someone you can't or don't trust? You sure don't, unless you love to do random gambles so much or you just like to surrender your life on karma.

B. Motivation

mo·ti·va·tion
noun \ˌmō-tə-ˈvā-shən\

: the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something : the act or process of motivating someone
: the condition of being eager to act or work : the condition of being motivated

: a force or influence that causes someone to do something

This is still related to trust, if people expect you to be a good, reliable, skilled person, that means they put some trust on you. This sounds almost all good, but wait..not really. Why?

It works like a double edged sword. Once you fulfill their expectation, they hope to see you level up, or at least don't go down or back. The problem usually is, are you ready or able to keep up with that? Naturally a person has a cycle of productivity level, sometimes you're burning and shining and all you do looks great, and pleases lot of people, sometimes your stamina drying up and you just want to laze around and do something for fun, and this time, people will go like "Huh? Why are you not doing as good?" or even "Look at him, he is getting lot of better, while you're staying the same."

You might want to always improve yourself and use it as your improvement fuel or your motivation, but is it because of others' expectation toward you, or you really want it yourself?

I think relying to expectations too much is unhealthy, i believe you should observe what you really want to do inside, is the pace correct for you? Are they (expectations) pushing you too much or too fast?

C. Life direction
Yes, your life... Driven by people's expectations.

Important question: Do you like it?

• Literally, do you like being what people want you to be? 
• Or are you just forced to be the person people ask for or expect you to be?
• Imagine if you live without any expectation from outside of you. 
• Imagine you live by your own will, without parents, friends, neighbors, relatives, anyone, anything who would expect you to become someone who do something. Without obligation from "outside", anyone or anything get in your way of life.
• What would you do? 
• Would you still be the same person as now?

Can you answer that directly without thinking much?

As for myself, i found out that my life kind of driven by them. If you have read my previous post about how i am said having talent with art, that's one thing driven me until today, and i'm happy with being myself now, expected by lot of people to do this and that, and using--no, EXPLOIT them as my motivation.

If you can answer the first question with a YES without any "umm", "hmm", "err," then perhaps you have no problem, continue, and go on, and have a nice life. But if you can't, or you would boldly say NO, then you gotta change that condition somehow for your own good.

How to change that?

• Observe who you are. What do you want? Accept your situation, even it's hard and hurt. 
• Then ask yourself: Do you really want to change the condition? (e.g. you feel terrible living your life because you're forced to live somebody else's life). Who's responsible for the risk if you change it? What if it's fail? It's all on you. You don't blame anyone else, it's you. (or you can blame me for the provocation lol.)
• Change the people around you (you kick them away from your life, don't care how, or you scram from them). I don't like living with people who influence me with negativity, or just dominate my life too much, but sometimes i know it's just seem impossible since they're your family, parents, or someone you also care about, but they just don't or can't understand what do you want.
• Change the people's expectations toward you, explain well that you don't like it, you feel bad. Don't fake your intentions, don't expect everything will be smooth, still keep your critical thought about yourself, what really you want to do, and do what you want.
• If no one of the above points work, then try this. Change your mindset/ perspective, so you can grow liking what you expected or forced to become, and stop to think that you're forced to be so, start to say to yourself, "I love this." or at least "Slowly I want to get interested to this". A friend said, don't use the word "must", because it's give impression of pressure, or forcefully to your inner-self or unconscious brain, haha.

 

2. We don't fucking care.

Can we? Depends on until what level you can ignore them.
We care or not, your life is going on. Everyone else's live also do. You just don't think about it, you exclude it from your life, your brain, you throw them away, the good and the bad side. If you have read carefully until this point, you should be already noticed the good and the bad side of expectations, may it be encouragement, or it be source of your stresses. It depends on how you see it, and handle it.

3. We both care and don't care.

You get multiple different expectation from many people around you. Some of them ask you become A, the other ones against it.

So how to deal with it? You choose it! You can decide which expectations you want to care which one you throw. Eh? How? Ask yourself once more: what to do you want? If you wanted A, screw people who against it. If you don't know, maybe you go with majority, or just toss a coin (one of my favorite habit).

Then, is it better that way? Or you become to unmotivated that way? You choose.
As for me, i choose to care some good ones, and i choose to use the power of expectation for my spirit booster.

Expectations from yourself, toward yourself

You can't forget this, right? You have them too (or not?). You expect yourself to be something in future, today, tomorrow, next month, next year, to be a good or a bad one, a unusual, ordinary, rich, poor, beautiful, ordinary, so on.

You like new year resolutions?
You like deadlines? Targets?
Future goals? Dreams?

Sometimes one expect much, sometimes one expect less, or not expected anything. This works the same to other kind of expectations, but since this is coming from you, it should be easier to control or handle. At least it's supposed to be easier. If not, maybe you'll have to treat this expectations of yours like others'.

You still can use this beneficial rather than frustrating or life-pressuring, depends on how well you're using it, not being used by it.

Why do i write this, and conclusions

Man, this article is just too hard to write you know, it's been months (or a year?) since i first try to write this, i'm not usually like this, but i was doubting if my writings truly express my own opinion. My personality and perceptions toward life, expectations, people around me, changes a lot.

I'm having hard time re-read this writings over and over again, because structure is bad, haha. But I just hope this long writing can be mind opening, rather than confusing.

I see friends being unhappy, problematic about life and their expectations and expectations towards them, I find a lot of people confused about how they face life, or just ignore them until life become their threat. I see some people living unwanted life, frustated, given doctrines they don't agree with, but they just can't do anything about it, or even they can't complain because it dangers their life. Their inner-self say NO, but they expected to say YES. It's realistic, it happens every time, but i find it sad.

random art i did for contest. how's this related to post? who cares lol

I want them to be happier, and live positively. I'm not seem so, but i am still a good person, haha. (right?)

I wonder if people can be fully (or at least mostly) aware of their mind, their will, can they find a way to happiness?

 So, this better ends here before i go nuts about not finishing this post in years, haha.
Have a nice day, be happy, or happier than you always are.

~Laz out!