You know in life it's pretty easy to get caught up in expectations....make life goal oriented and destination oriented instead of seeing it as a journey and experience. My father passed recently, this past Thanksgiving morning actually....my mother passed away 2 years ago...Im not close to my family at all so my father's death marked my family's demise as well. I will no longer have to see them nor talk with them. But this isn't about my family and my relationship with them. This is about life. Living life....being happy with your life. Many are not happy with their life.....Various reasons may cause this unhappiness but I want to talk about a certain type of unhappiness with life.....

The reason I mentioned my family is expectations....Expectations and perception are what has plauged me over the years. I was expected to be great because I showed flashes of greatness early on....I did great things at a young age so I was expected to be great. But I am just a normal person....I was really good at sports so I was thought to be a success when I got older...I wasn't as interested in sports as much as my family and friends would have liked. When I didn't choose that path and didn't choose other paths that I was good at my mom and dad began to question...Why aren't you doing the things your good at? Why haven't you applied yourself completely? It came easy to me...sports...Football and Basketball in particular...it was far too easy for me to not pursue it they said...Computers....didn't come as easy but I was good at it....again the questions...”Why haven't you applied yourself completely to doing this for a living?” “It pays so much money.” Well the obvious answer would be “It's just not something I enjoy doing.” I just wish the answer was as easy as that.

This may sound odd...but I never enjoyed that people knew I was good at something. I was treated differently...Not in a bad way no...I was treated exceptionally well. Lots of friends, people who looked up to me and thought I was “special” and told me so often. Girls love you, guys wanna be your friend all that crap. Thing is....I knew the only reason I was treated that way was cause of what I could do, not because I was funny or my personality was great or my character was good. I wanted to be liked for having substance not for what I could do or what I looked like or things like that. I did things for fun not to make money or to someday make money...not for admiration though nice it was not something I lived for. Yet the more applause I got the less I wanted to do. Till I stopped doing it completely....Not too prove some sort of point but because I didn't enjoy doing it anymore. I remember my Dad's face when I told him I turned down a assistant coach at ASU (a college here in Phoenix, AZ) who saw me beating on some of his players in a pickup basketball game. The assistant coach wanted me to try out for the team...I didn't go to ASU I went to a community college at the time. I turned the community college down too. My dad looked at me like “What the hell is wrong with you boy.” But I got that look often in high school when I didn't play there either. My dad never forced me or wanted me to play ball, but just was perplexed that I wouldn't do something that came so easy to me and I was really good at.

That is my life in a nutshell....That is the pattern I follow...get good at something, show promise...Don't follow it further. As long as it's fun and I enjoy it and I don't draw attention to myself then Im fine. The moment it goes differently I back off. My dad's passing has caused me to question if that thinking was a wise choice. There are many people who are not and will never be good or great at anything....They spend their time wishing or dreaming....I have been fortunate. I know nothing is guaranteed and no one says I would have been successful at whatever I tried to pursue further, but my family “perceives” me as some chosen kid that got all the opportunities they didn't and threw them away so casually. Spoiled....thinks he's better than us....pretty boy....ect ect....mainly they are all drug addicts and alcoholics and they wonder why I want nothing to do with them...I must be just so stuck up.

Wanna know the truth about me? I will tell you. Im a nerd. Geek....regular average Joe schmoe geek. Do I look like one? No. But that is me. I read comics, I watch cartoons....I like Transformers....I am a kid at heart. What I want in life is to do the things I like doing....no matter how nerdy or no matter who thinks it's a waste of time. Things that make me happy no matter how simplistic or childish they may seem is what makes me happy. I don't want to be a star, famous, driven by money, or a success in the eyes of other people. I don't care if you think im a loser or a messiah....I love who and what I am. I am much more than what I have just written but to tell all of what I am would take 20 threads to tell. I love the fact that I get to experience childhood stuff my son is experiencing all over again. Im not going to sit at home and feel like a loser cause im not traveling the world or doing “important work.” Not everyone wants to be in the spotlight. I don't....though I find myself in it too much. I remember my friends in high school that were nerdy and unpopular used to tell me “Why do you hang with us when you could go with the cheerleaders and basketball team over there?” I would just tell them I enjoyed their company more. I know they would have killed to included....to be like the other sheeple that we went to school with. To not be teased....But I was happy being what I was. I still am. I hope my Dad understands that now.

Anyway...are there anyone else here who have had to deal with expectations and perceptions from family and friends?

Expectations aside, are you happy with your life?

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Since my dad died I had to ask myself that question...and yes I actually am...more so now than ever before. In a way his passing made me re-affirm my belief that I even though there is no glory in how I live my life im happy with the results.

My family kind of did the opposite. I was always good at academics, particularly science. They shrugged their shoulders over my report cards and such. I think partly so as not to put pressure on me, and partly so as not to make my little sister feel like an underdog 'cause she didn't dig school so much.

However, they knew I was smart, and I think they trusted that I would figure things out for myself.

The combination probably wasn't the best in some ways. Without being encouraged or given advice, I've kind of lacked direction for most of my adult life. I don't regret it, because I've explored things I wouldn't have otherwise, but I sometimes think I'd be closer to my goals if I'd been nudged a bit, especially as a young teenager.

Parents can't win.

Sinister said:

Good! It sounds like you've listened to yourself rather than living life for others. That's a good, and kinda rare, thing.

i was faced more with perceptions than expectations with my family.

as a father with your own son now... i am sure you can relate to just wanting the best for your child. perhaps you did get "the look" but i would bet it was only a reflection of how he perceived you could have been happier at the time.

i know your world has changed becoming a father and if your own father didn't recognize your contentedness before, i am sure he does now.
much love to you big man

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Me too Sometimes I wish they had higher expectations for me.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Yeah our parents should have switched strategies lol.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

What did they "percieve" you to be? If you don't mind me asking...

emm said:

Thanks emm I kinda started to second guess myself for a bit....It's hard when you belong to 2 worlds and both want equal time.

shellyevon said:

Im curious...do you mean in school? Life?

Sinister said:

they thought there was something wrong with me, due to the fact that they thought i wasn't "black" enough. that, and i wasn't talkative and gossipy like they were. i'm one of the drama-free members of my family: didn't get pregnant and have kids at a young age, didn't drink/get high, never got in trouble with the law, didn't have any friends who'd get locked up in meyer hall (juvenile hall back in des moines) all the time. i'm not like them, therefore they thought something was wrong with me and wasn't worth their time to bother with. to this day i still don't know a great deal of my family members because of this.

on top of all that, since i was the one who found my mom dead i've always had this stigma hanging around me. they thought that i'd be scarred for life because of that, but that was never the case. still to this day, a lot of my family members (mostly on my mom's side) don't interact with me. i'm "the elephant in the room" of the family.

here i go off on a tangent. dunno why but i can never directly respond to what you post about

no matter what other people say it's how you feel inside about yourself that counts in life. it's whether you're glad to wake up in the morning and whether you have happiness in your heart and the outlook that each new day could be special.

imo better not spend too much time listening to how other people want you to live, you have to just live life the way you want to live it. i think you know that already and good for you.


ps: condolences on the loss of your father. that is a very hard thing to experience, keep the faith.
[Edited 12/10/06 18:28pm]

Sinister said:

Both really, I was always compared to my older brother, no matter how well I did it never mattered. So I fooled around and did minimal work by the time I was in high school, I only went three days most weeks. I sais it was against my religion to go to school on Mondays and Fridays I was "sick" most of the time.
I still made the honor roll so it really didn't matter much to anyone anyway.

Funny thing is, I'm the responsible one who takes care of everyone else now. And my Mom still favors my older brother over all the rest of us.
She paid for his education but the rest of us had to finance our own.

Sinister said:

Wow. A lot of what you've written above really resonates with me.

To cut to the chase, I think this quotation is very apropos:



You've got something much more valuable than any of the things people thought you were squandering: you've got an understanding of what makes you happy and it's a shame your dad couldn't have understood that before he passed; it probably would've made him very happy.

Never be ashamed of being who you are. Thanks for sharing.