If you’re like me, you grew up with really high expectations—do well in school, put yourself out there, do sports, take all the honors or AP classes. High expectations aren’t always a bad thing—they are what made me the successful college student I am today. But those high expectations come with the price of a heavy burden on your shoulders.
You feel like you can’t fail. If you get an 88 on an exam you studied really hard for and felt super confident about, you’re probably bummed about it, while your classmates who bombed the test think you’re lucky. If you’re 4.0 GPA slips just a tiny bit, you panic a little because you’re proud of it. So when you’re freaking out because your perfect GPA is no longer perfect, your friends look at you like you’re crazy. They don’t understand what it means to you, and if you try to explain it, you feel like you’ll sound like a snob.
You feel like you have to do everything. You have to be well-rounded. You have to build your resume. You have to be more active, work more, not be lazy, whatever. You are constantly running around, trying to figure out how to balance work, social life, school, homework, family, and friends, maybe more. But as tired as you are, you are also expected to be active in school, in the community, and be physically active too, and perform well in all of those areas.
But then you feel like you’re missing out. There are things you are expected to do (like work 3 jobs) and things you want to do (like go out for a sports team or something). Your schedule doesn’t fit all of them, but you want it to. You’re usually stuck doing the things expected of you, probably because you need to make that extra $50 for your savings account or because you already made a commitment to it.
It’s super weird to not be doing anything. With high expectations comes a lot of work—homework, jobs, extracurricular activities. You’re constantly running around, with barely enough time for yourself. So when you’re not doing anything or can’t do anything (like when you break your leg), it’s the weirdest thing ever, and you might slip into this slump of “I am bored and useless and this is strange.” You feel like you’ve forgotten to do something when you finish everything and have time to just chill.
You sometimes feel misunderstood. Your friends who have a normal life don’t understand why you pack your schedule with barely enough room to breathe. Your SO doesn’t see why you’re so stressed out over one assignment. Your classmates don’t get it that your grades are important. Your parents or teachers or guardians or siblings don’t always grasp the concept that you are trying your damnedest to figure out how to balance everything and that you’re trying to meet everyone’s expectations of what you should be.
High expectations can be a good thing. But I also think that it is sometimes forgotten that they add a hell of a lot of stress, and behind the success of many is a lot of stress and worry and sometimes sadness. So next time a friend is freaking out over something, please remember that they may be drowning beneath the expectations people place on top of them.
