Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations. What exactly the word means, and why it carries so much weight. It seems to me that we are brought up with an overwhelming number of expectations from all directions. Our grandparents, our parents, our peers, our classmates, our siblings, our teachers… ourselves. But I want to get to the root of it all. What is the consequence of expectations, and do we hold ourselves back from living fully when we hold them too close? Are expectations actually the bane of our existence?

Be this, be that

As a woman of colour, it feels like I have been inundated with expectations since the day I was born. Be a good daughter. Get good grades. Be pretty and thin. Be hairless on your face and body. But have an abundance of straight shiny hair on your head. Be perfect. Be quiet. Don’t bring shame to the family. Wear this, wear that. Be this, be that. The list goes on.

It’s not just me, and it’s obviously not just women of colour either. It seems like expectations are the universal experience of people everywhere. As women, we’re expected to be perfect wives, mothers, and employees. And we’re supposed to be all the above, all at once, all the while looking flawless and never going ‘psycho’. Is it any wonder that eventually we break under the pressure? The expectations themselves are psychos if you ask me! They’re unrealistic and I don’t care for them anymore.

I Want to Break Free

What if we decided to not break under the pressure, but instead to break free? What if we unlearned all the conditioning that polluted our wild natures? I’m pondering over how a life without the weighty and uncomfortable shackles of expectation might look.

For me, it would be letting go of the constant need for productivity and accepting that there will be days where I achieve fuck all. It would be never worrying about whether I ‘should’ get married again, ‘should’ have children before I get too old, and who I ‘should’ try not to disappoint in the process. From an external appearance perspective, it would be fully loving and embracing my wild, unruly, frizzy hair, not masking my acne scars, and not thinking twice about hairy arms, legs or armpits. And in terms of career? Don’t even get me started, because it would probably mean deleting the word from my vocabulary completely. I’d have so much clarity and courage. I’d just be in the moment…my moment…..

My Great Expectation

All of the above is a scary – I know. And perhaps you see breaking free as unrealistic. After all, what I’m essentially suggesting is being brave enough to be disliked. To be unapologetic and trust in yourself fully. I’m advocating being bold, brave and untamed enough to follow through with our own ways of living, regardless of what others think, and stripping back the years of cultural and societal conditioning that has shaped our views on the things we didn’t even know we had a say in.

But here’s the thing: we do have a say. My great expectation is that we use it.

I’m not saying it’s easy. Breaking free from what others want from us is a process, and it takes time. But it starts with acknowledging that those expectations exist and that they have consequences. It starts with questioning why we’re doing what we’re doing, and whether it’s really making us happy. All of this starts with making conscious choices on every single thing that we do.

So find your own way to live fully, fuck the ‘shoulds’ and be yourself. To put it simply – break expectations before they break you.