Great Expectations!

Much of life's disappointment stems from our ridiculously high expectations.

The other day, I took out a Chinese workbook meant for kids aged 3 to 5, in a rather embarrassing attempt to teach myself how to scribble a few Chinese characters. This was what I had learned, instead: If I were my own Mandarin tutor, I would have lost all patience with a student like myself. My blood would boil and I might just end up strangling myself ... 



Jumbo writing, indeed! 

All I had to do was to follow the dotted lines on the page, yet the pencil chose to be rebellious and had persistently refused to obey. It was as if the paper had put a charm on the pencil and lured it away from the dotted lines. No. It was not my fault that my lines did not coincide with the dots. It was truly the pencil's fault. Or maybe the paper. Or maybe the uneven floor.

All I had to do was to follow the dotted lines 

That got me thinking - nobody had expected me to write perfectly. There was no teacher or parent to punish me even if I were to produce the most horrible writing in the world. Why then did I get so upset and defensive? Truth be told, I have been like this since young. It's one of my many bad traits, I admit. If someone were to keep my record, this should be diagnosed as a severe DISEASE (not even a disorder) which needs to be eradicated, failing which may eventually lead to death, or insanity (whichever comes first). Too bad the eradication process is easier said than done. 

As far as I can remember, I have always scored averagely good results throughout my primary school years. In fact, I recall the distraught I put my family members through when I had my first B in Mathematics back in Standard Four. Not only had I shed buckets of tears, but I had also refused to go to school and was inconsolable for days, even though my aunt tried comforting me. I thought my world had crashed.

Paradoxically, the situation in secondary school eased a little as my studies began to deteriorate. Nonetheless, I would still stress myself silly to get relatively good results, albeit without having to study hard. 

At this point, you may think that my parents must have been slave drivers when it came to my studies. You cannot be more wrong. To put it a little crudely: My parents couldn't be bothered. What I meant was, they NEVER had to worry about my academic results at all. There was no need to put any pressure on me because I had already put enough pressure on myself. My brother had always been the problematic one in his studies. =) So problematic, in fact, that my parents were too preoccupied with his performance to dwell too much in my academic success. They had just assumed that I would do well eventually. And I usually did. Well, except maybe during STPM ... but that is another story altogether!

Someone once wrote that being born as a second (or third, fourth, fifth etc.) child in the family is like competing in a race, but you have to wait ten minutes at the starting line. I cannot agree more. 

While it may be rewarding to wait, watch, and learn from an older sibling's mistakes and blunders, it is equally exhausting having to keep up with the things they do and to vie for the affection that they had inherited as the firstborn. I did not know what I wanted to prove by doing well in school but I secretly thought my parents would surely love me more if I had scored my fair share of As. The irony, though, is this: the better my academic results were, the less my parents had to worry for me. Instead of getting more attention for performing well in school, I had relieved them of their worry and ultimately, their attention.

As if studies were not stressful enough, I pushed myself to do well in whatever form of tests I could lay my hands on. I tried my best not to fail a single piano exam. And when I was barred from sitting for my first undang (some theoretical paper for driving) due to my poor eyesight, I decided to make up for it by scoring full marks on the paper. Although the administrators at my driving school were surprised, I was not. It was, after all, another test in which I had expected myself to excel. If I were to hide behind the sugar-coated truth, I would just say that I was trying to give my BEST in everything I did;  

... but to call a spade a spade, I had gradually been consumed by a horrendous Chinese monster named Kiasu. 

Kiasu 

Definition of Kiasu

A pinch of kiasu-ism (if the term, indeed, does exist) goes a long way. Well, both ways, in fact. For one, it serves as a great motivator for success. In reality, Kiasu-ism and Great Expectations are merely siblings from the same parents. Behind each kiasu soul lies an individual with great expectations. Even so, without such expectations, one may not be inspired to succeed. Take the protagonist of Charles Dicken's Great Expectations for example. Given Pip's humble beginnings in life, he would not have become a refined gentleman in his adult years if not for his ... great expectations (even if his motives may sometimes seem thwarted)! If he were to live in our present-day Asian society, you would probably accuse Pip of being a kiasu, too, even though all he ever wanted was to be able to sing along with Robbie Williams i.e. "to be a better man".

 

On the other hand, when we set our expectations too high and place the doormat for the kiasu monster to move in and make itself at home, we set ourselves for even greater disappointment and discontent. Years ago I read of a 12 year-old girl who hung herself because she did not score straight As for her UPSR. It may have seemed like a big deal to her at that point of her life, but I wished someone had the chance to tell her that if she had only clung onto life a little longer, she would eventually arrive at a stage where she wouldn't care two hoots about her UPSR results anyway. PMR would also amount to nothing. And as long as one gets admission into college after SPM and graduates, the SPM cert wouldn't matter much, too. Even if one fails to graduate, that is not the end of the road. I can name many more people who contribute more to the society and earn more than I do, all without having any tertiary education to brag about. As an educator, it may seem rather 'blasphemous' for me to give such strange advice but I am merely stating the truth. 

I kept in touch with a boy who received his SPM results a few days ago and although he had 10As, he was a bit upset about the one B+ that he received. It is so easy for us to lose focus on the 10As we have in our pocket if we choose to look at the one B+ that in a way 'marred' the otherwise perfect result. This reminds me of the story of 99 gold coins. You can read it here: http://mythologystories.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/99club/

To cut the long story short, a king wanted to find out why his servant was so much happier than he was. His advisor suggested that he place a bag with 99 coins (not 100, mind you!) for the servant to discover. The rest is history as the servant began recounting the coins just to make sure that the 100th coin was not missing from the bag. He began to work doubly hard, became extra grouchy, and less of a human just to be able to top the amount to a complete 100. Yeah, that is what ridiculously great expectations can do to us, too. Wouldn't you agree that it is more disconcerting to score a 99 than a 96 in an exam where the full mark is 100?

I guess the worst damage that results from one's great expectations is not the loss of our own happiness and life, but more so the happiness and lives of our friends and loved ones along the way. We will know that the situation has gone out of hand when we begin to impose our expectations on others, be it in terms of education, work, or even relationship. Throughout the years, I have slowly learned (and am still learning) that it is not right for me to expect things/favours/accomplishments from others. If my students want to fail despite my best efforts, there is nothing I can do about it. If my best friends are not aware of the special treatment I have reserved for them, there is nothing I can do about it. If family members are not satisfied with what I do for a living, there is also nothing I can do about it. It does not pay to work myself up over how other people choose to treat me or to expect others to understand. But this is not an easy lesson to learn, I admit.




We are not potatoes but humans

Am I then suggesting that we should go through life with nary an expectation at all? Definitely not! We are not potatoes but humans. We are creatures who need to be challenged and motivated. Can you imagine waking up in the morning without any aim? (Yes, it may be a relief for a day or two, but what about a lifetime?) Nonetheless, as with everything else in life, it is always good to strike a balance between having no expectations at all and setting ridiculously high standards for us to achieve. Should we fail to do that, we better brace ourselves for greater disappointments in life.

Here's to a good week ahead!