Living Up To Our Own Expectations

        I watched a video the other day about Wes Moore talking about his book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, and the impact he had wanted to make with it. One thing that he said both in the book and his presentation is that “We are a product of our expectations.” This confused me at first because I have always heard that we are a product of our environment, not our expectations. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Our environment directly affects our expectations. What we see and are surrounded by throughout our childhood is what we grow to expect for ourselves and those around us. Both Wes Moores grew up in what I believe is the same neighborhood, but the difference between them was who their parents were and how they changed their own lives. One ended up being a Rhodes scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder. Another thing mentioned in Wes Moore's presentation was that both Wes Moores lived up to their expectations whether they wanted to or not.   

    

Now that I've talked a bit about what Wes Moore thinks about expectations and realities, I want to relate it to my life and analyze how expectations and environment affect who we are. Disclaimer, I am a very young person still, and I have a lot of life yet ahead of me, so this will be purely based on my first 20 years of life. 

    When I was little, probably about 3-4 years old, I decided I wanted to be a dancer when I grew up then I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, and I also wanted to work with marine life (not that I put it that way but that is what it is in career terms). So, I had a lot of expectations for myself at a very early age. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have parents and family who always supported my dreams and encouraged me to put myself out there and learn what I liked and didn’t like. So, knowing I wanted to be a dancer, I was put in dance classes at a recreational studio. I wanted to be a teacher because I loved learning, so I was always reading and turning in assignments early. I wanted to work with marine life or any type of wildlife, so I took classes at nature centers and the zoo. Then I got into high school, and they wanted me to know exactly who I wanted to be so I could start taking classes that would help me in college and help me learn more about what I wanted to do. To say that sent me into a spiral would be an understatement. My school didn’t offer any courses that had a focus on dance or wildlife, so I settled for education. Not that education is settling for others, but it felt that way to me. But then I went to a dance intensive and realized that dance was a possibility for me and that I couldn’t let it go. I think that expectations are in our environment, and the expectation to know who I was at 15 years old limited me to what was possible only in my high school. If I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to dance in New York and surround myself in a different environment with new expectations, I would be in Minnesota working on my Elementary Education degree.     

So, are we a product of our expectations or our environment? I would argue both. We are a product of our expectations and the expectations of those around us, which create our environment. We tend to live up to other's expectations more than our own, so surrounding ourselves with people who expect the same, if not more than we do of ourselves, can lead to reaching our full potential.