Let’s Not and Say We Did: Living Up to Nobody’s Expectations But Your Own
“ I suppose what I’m getting at is that, one way or the other, I never entirely fitted in. I was immature in some ways and overly mature in others. Adults assumed I was capable because, by now, I was tall and good at exams and well behaved in class, but really I was just trying to work things out and I still barely knew myself. I always felt something of an outsider. ” —Elizabeth Day, How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong This personal essay is brought to you in part by this iconic and timeless quote from Kat Stratford in the iconic and timeless film 10 Things I Hate About You . As I’ve gotten older, I’ve often found myself feeling stifled by expectations: the expectations of others and the expectations of the world, combined with my own expectations for myself. And I’ve learned that much of the reason behind why I’ve felt stifled by expectation is because I didn’t realize how much of a people-pleaser I had become. In her book How to Fail , El...