In a world where people desire conformity and fitting in I think it’s common for people to allow the expectations of others drive those that we have for ourselves. This can sometimes be a good thing but it may have many detrimental effects depending on our surroundings. In the best of cases, the support of others makes you feel capable of success. What I've seen is that people let the expectations of others become an excuse for why they settle or why they become an entirely different version of themselves.
Through a lot of my schooling I was oblivious to the fact that I did just enough to get by. My parents and teachers expected A’s, and that’s exactly what I worked for. It came to a point where I noticed it was all about getting an 89.5% to get an A or doing a homework quickly strictly for a completion grade. It became more about meeting a requirement than improving myself and growing as a person.
Today, I try to find the meaning in what I do; I desire to learn. It’s easy to fall into the patterns of fulfilling some expectation and not striving for more. I want to be the best at what I do. There’s always more you could have done. I ask myself what’s going to set me apart from the rest. With a mindset like this school no longer seems like a place I'm forced to go to; it’s a place I'm excited to go to. I now set the bar for myself; I respond to my own expectations.
