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Don’t Live Your Life Trying to Meet Others’ Expectations Of You
It’s your life, live it how you want to.
Everyone lives with the expectations others set for them. Maybe your parents wanted you to become a doctor. Your second-grade teacher didn’t think you would amount to anything.
Whatever the expectations, they weigh on you, even if you don’t want to accomplish them. It’s especially difficult to push expectations away if you love the people who set them.
It’s hard to push other people’s expectations away when you’re a child. But when you’re an adult, it’s time to re-evaluate meeting these expectations.
Living your life to meet someone else’s goals is no way to live.
Realize Expectations From People Who Love You Are [Likely] In Your Best Interest — And Disregard Them Anyway
Being a doctor is associated with prestige, high income, and a higher standard of living. A parent expecting their child to be a doctor is a common movie trope nowadays because it’s so common.
The expectations set for you by your loved ones are usually in your best interest. They are set to lead you in what your loved ones believe is the right direction to create a better life than they had.
But, there are family members who may be living their dreams vicariously through you, too.
You can be prestigious, have a high income, and a high standard of living as a mechanic. You may very well be one of the top mechanics in the industry and will be respected, and high income.
Recognize you can accomplish a better standard of living through many paths, often not the ones you’re told to travel. Create your own path — cliché, I know.
Respect Your Needs Above The Desires Of Others
Travelers know that in the airplane safety demo, a flight attendant always tells us to put on our own oxygen masks before helping anyone else in the case of an emergency.
Expectations are often thrust onto us by people who didn’t meet their own expectations. These people may not have easy jobs, enough money, or…