Great Expectations
What happens when reality meets the life we planned
I was sitting with my kids last week, running through the mental math of our summer schedule. At the kitchen table, it hit me: What exactly was I expecting from them? They had been up since 6 am for swim team. After racing home for second breakfast, they skidded out the door for sports camp. After three hours in the heat, they were back at the kitchen table, sticky with sweat, and devoured their lunch. I reminded them that piano and violin practice were next on the docket. We had a full academic block of their summer school work penciled in after all of that.
Was that realistic? Fair? Wise? Necessary?
No.
So, we pivoted. One subject a day. We move the needle forward, they still learn something, and nobody ends the day defeated. The bar didn’t disappear. I just moved it somewhere they could actually clear it. Then, we went to the pool.
My life has been filled with Great Expectations—those others have held for me and the internal standards I’ve created for myself. I demand excellence and expect others to do the same. In many ways, I’m grateful for this wiring. The bar has always been high, so I’ve always reached. It’s shaped who I am and what I’ve built. I wouldn’t be where I am without it. Still, I’ve had to learn, slowly and sometimes the hard way, that lofty expectations aren’t always the best thing.
In parenting, I often try to gauge what is developmentally appropriate. Children are not miniature adults. Am I asking our kids to do something they’re actually capable of doing, given where they are right now? A tapped-out four-year-old who can’t regulate strong emotion is not being defiant. A sun-tired, swim-practiced, camp-worn kid is not going to absorb long division. The mismatch is the problem, not the child. I have to regularly check in with myself and ask whether I, as the adult in charge, am actually setting us up for success.
The question of what’s reasonable isn’t only true of children. It’s worth asking across every relationship, every season, every version of ourselves: Is what I’m expecting here actually fair? Adjusting an expectation is not the same as settling or lowering your standards. Sometimes it’s the most honest accounting of what’s actually in front of you.
There’s a formula I return to often: happiness equals reality minus expectations. Joy isn’t just about what happens to us. It’s the gap between what we hoped for and what is. Sometimes it behooves us to level-set before we step into an experience to spare us heartache and disappointment on the other side.
As a psychologist, I operate in dialectics. One of the most powerful is acceptance and change. When a patient sits across from me, I meet them exactly where they are, as they are. At the same time, I reject the notion that their present state of existing in the world is as good as it gets. I always hold the aspirational view, even when someone can’t see it for themselves (yet). The work of humanity is being and becoming. The person in front of me is not a finished product, and neither am I. These two things have to coexist. Acceptance without hope becomes resignation. Aspiration without acceptance becomes pressure that crushes rather than propels.
Which brings me back to the redeeming concept that has transformed my life: grace. Grace is what lives in the space between the standard and the struggle. It doesn’t give a free pass and say, “What you did doesn’t matter,” or “Anything goes.” Instead, grace extends from a place of investment, belief, and love. “I see what you’re carrying, and what you’re capable of.” “You are worthy no matter what. It’s okay to mess up as you work to find your footing.” I am working to lavish it more freely... to myself and the people I love.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s growth. How do we get there? Standards of excellence that we can actually live inside of. Not too high. Not too low. Calibrated to what’s real, what’s possible, and what leaves room for a person to be human while they work toward something better. That’s the Goldilocks version of expectation. In my experience, it’s the one that actually works.
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