We come into this world as little, tiny humans destined for big things. We play with our blocks, and our adeptness at building tall castles without them falling over leaves our parents admiring our steady hands; so naturally, we are expected to become surgeons. We go to school and become star algebra students; so we are expected to become little businessmen and women. We even write one exceptionally well-rhymed poem for a six year old, and all of a sudden we are expected to publish best-selling novels.
And maybe, just maybe before we are even born, a world of expectations awaits us.
In one way or another, our parents’ expectations of us have pushed us and helped us get to where we are today: Notre Dame. But it’s also safe to say that, as Notre Dame students, we have set expectations for ourselves, expectations that are often even more rigorous than those set for us by our parents.
We all think we’re going to be great.
But what happens when we get to college and find out that those great expectations our parents have of us becoming doctors and accountants leave us empty and miserable? On the one hand, we feel that we owe it to our parents to become the skilled engineers they’re paying $60,000 a year for us to become. On the other hand, we feel how this rising ND sophomore felt during her semester as a pre-med student: “I hated college because I hated the classes I was in, the assignments I had to force myself to haphazardly do, and the labs I lazily completed.”
And we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met.
But the thing is, we need to distinguish our expectations of ourselves from others’ expectations of us. We try to avoid disappointing those that we love by desperately telling ourselves that juggling both their expectations and ours will result in happiness for all those involved. However, we must realize that our expectations of ourselves are what truly matter. That internal drive, that motivation to meet and surpass our expectations, to succeed, can only come from us.
As the former pre-med student previously quoted, “Conforming myself into somebody’s expectation actually caused me to fail” (quite literally sometimes– holla gen chem third midterm).
But, sometimes, our expectations sell us short. Sometimes, the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected.
Sometimes forgoing what is expected of you in the eyes of others and doing what is unexpected by them can be one of the best decisions you make.
“After switching majors and going into classes I liked, my attitude towards school completely changed. That was reflected in the success of my grades and activities I later pursued when I finally did what I wanted. The way I view it now is even if I had stayed as premed, I wouldn’t have been a good one and that in itself, would be a waste of my parents sending me to college.
Trying to live up to high expectations is an inevitable part of life. However, we have control over which of those expectations we try to live up to. Will it be the ones that have been placed on us our whole life, the ones that we aren’t even sure we want to meet? Or will it be the new ones we have finally allowed ourselves to set for ourselves, the ones we passionately want to meet and exceed?
Don’t let yourself be restrained by others’ expectations of you. Set your own expectations. Surround yourself with people who support them. But remember, don’t let yourself be constrained by your own expectations, either because…
1. The expected is just the beginning.
2. The unexpected is what changes our lives.
I’d like to thank the sophomore former pre-med, now business student who I interviewed for this article and Grey’s Anatomy for providing the quotes in italics taken from a monologue in Season 3, Episode 13: “Great Expectations.”
The HCND application is now open! For more information contact Rebecca Rogalski at rebeccarogalski@hercampus.comor Katrina Linden at katrinalinden@hercampus.com
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