I’m quite positive that my parents would most likely describe me as having high expectations since birth. Strong-willed, determined and an independent thinker, I probably wasn’t always the easiest child to raise. When I began attending school, my expectations only got worse. I became extremely involved in extracurricular activities (particularly sports) and my expectations became higher and higher. But, they weren’t my expectations for others.
They were my expectations for myself.
Feeling completely overwhelmed and having a near breakdown one day during my senior year in high school, my Chemistry teacher took me out into the hallway, made me take a deep breath and told me that I needed to take everything one day at a time. At that moment, my entire perspective changed. It was my “ah-ha” moment. Did my expectations of myself become so high that I was striving for “perfection”? Where was the divide? Or was there one?
Someone once told me “Expect nothing from no one and you will never be disappointed.” At the time, my freshman-in-college-self thought that maybe that was how I needed to begin thinking; maybe I expected so much from myself that I did the same in regards to others, which was leading me to consistently feel let down because my expectations were too unrealistic.
I sat on that thought for some time, wondering if I had been expecting too much from others through my life. If so, I was only continually disappointing myself.
It wasn’t until my college days were over and I escaped a toxic relationship (that lasted too many years… isn’t that how those always go?) that I realized that I would rather be disappointed than have no expectations of others. I found that lowering my expectations only allowed other people to show me less respect than I showed them.
The golden rule didn’t seem to exist.
Following the demise of that relationship, I threw that advice out of my window of thinking. I realized that, all along, my expectations of others were consistent with the same expectations I had of myself. I expected a lot of myself in regards to how I treated others, so why wouldn’t I expect the same from others in how they treated me?
I carry that moment in high school with me every. single. day.
After the birth of our two little girls, I knew I wanted to teach them to expect the very best of themselves. Not to the point of perfection by any means (which is what I learned the hard way), but to be the best versions of themselves in the way they treat others. By doing so, I can only hope that their expectations of other people will match their own.
In a world full of the unexpected, I have found through my experiences that it isn’t important to “expect nothing from no one,” but rather to “expect from others what we equally expect from ourselves.”
Maybe by doing so the world could be full of more kindness, and less criticism.
