Meeting Expectations

Today, I want to talk about people's expectations and people's abilities to meet them.  I believe that everyone in the world has a talent that they can excel in.  This may be artistic/musical skills, sport related skill, public speaking etc.  Many people, like myself, have not yet discovered our talent.  Currently, I am at university studying a Business and Marketing degree, in which some of my modules I enjoy, and some of them I struggle with and therefore don't perform well in the exams.  

Before university, I did GCSE's and A levels and I would get upset if I got a low grade in any of the subjects I struggled with, e.g. Science.  I would work myself up into a right state and would do resits to try and improve the grade.  Looking back, I realise that maybe science wasn't my 'talent' and that I should have been happy with what I achieved as I did the best that I could do at the time, and that's all that really matters.  

I remember having an art teacher who would ask the class to draw something e.g. a fruit bowl, and he would then get the class to put them in order from best to worst.  Being the shocking artist that I am, I was always put last and I would leave the class feeling upset and humiliated.  The teacher would tell me to improve for next week and to put more effort into it, but putting more hours into the work did not improve my artistic talents.  Looking back now, I should have handled it differently and accepted that I was never going to produce good artwork and the teacher should have praised my attempts, rather than look down on it and laughing.  I came across this quote by Albert Einstein a few years ago which I love.

The quote is basically saying that fish can not climb trees, and so if they were told to do so, they would fail and would feel depressed and think that they were a failure.  This is exactly the same with people; not everyone is the same, everyone has different talents.  If someone told me to write a poem, I would struggle massively, but give me some tap shoes and I could perform a dance easily.  

There is a lot of pressure, for me anyway, in performing well at school/sixth form/university.  Everyone I talk to about university just assumes that i'm doing well and am going to come out with a 1st class degree and it is hard to try and satisfy peoples expectations, especially as they are so high.  None of my family have ever been to university and so they do not know what it is like.  They haven't experienced the high work load, the many assignments that need to be completed, the tutorials, the lectures and keeping up with some sort of social life.  After reading this quote, I have come to the conclusion that I may be brilliant at some things, but completely hopeless at others.  I shouldn't live my life through fulfilling other people's expectations, I need to do what makes me happy.  With this in mind, I aim to do my best at everything and be happy with whatever results I get, knowing that I put my all into it.

Amy x