The weight of expectations.

It was another parents' teachers meet. I was not looking forward to it. I knew I hadn't made the top 10. I had missed out by 1 mark. That meant my name would not be on the board. What followed was one of the most significant moments of my life. It shaped the way I looked at things for a very long time. Listening to my mom talk with my teacher and expressing her disappointment was not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t hold myself. I broke down while the discussion was happening. And all my mom told me was to stop it and that I was embarrassing her with everyone else watching. I love my mom and she’s pampered me to no end but there have been moments where I wished she did something different. 

Deep down I knew I could never match her expectations. In the end, that was what I was afraid of the most. I was satisfied with my marks. To an extent. But I knew I could never reach the heights which my brother did. It wasn’t just my mom. I didn’t want to let anyone down. I felt the same way when PL said she expected better from me on my Math test or when RSM said he expects me to get a double digit rank in CET. It’s like Harry being afraid to disappoint Dumbledore or Patrice Evra saying what he feared the most was letting down Sir Alex. 

Things did not get better anytime soon. I put way too much pressure on myself trying to live up to someone else’s expectations and my performance became worse. Every test was a reminder that I wasn’t good enough and it was almost impossible to make them happy. The last three years of my schooling was probably the most horrible phase of my life. I cared too much about what my classmates, teachers and everyone else thought of me. I can’t recollect any moment where I was genuinely looking forward to attending school.

When I started writing this, I had not expected to find myself reminiscing about my school life. But it was a phase where I constantly believed I wasn’t good enough based on the expectations which others had on me and not on the actual results produced. I cared too much about what they thought and ended up hating myself. I still do that on occasions. It’s important to acknowledge that there will be valid criticisms and that I can always improve myself but I shouldn’t let that cloud my judgement and focus only on those criticisms. At the end of the day, I am accountable to only myself and as long as I’m satisfied with myself, that’s all that matters.

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