re: standards by laner

August 01, 2008 06:52 PM

dear internet,

when people expect things of you, do you actually become less confident in your own abilities, or do you become more confident in your abilities?

for instance, lets say people expect you to be very intelligent. then they see you are doing a crossword puzzle. do you feel like you are under more pressure to get the answers right (ooh! do it in pen!) quickly in order to prove that you live up to their expectations, or even avoid situations like that because you are afraid you can't, or do you just say "meh, they know i got this, and lo and behold, that must mean i got this!"

so i suppose the real question, then, is when people hold you to a high standard for something, how do you react?

results 30 votes

the higher standard others hold me to, the more nervous i get (10 votes)
 33%
higher standards others have of me make me more confident in myself (7 votes)
 23%
i avoid those situations because im scared of not performing (4 votes)
 13%
no one holds me to high standards (0 votes)
 0%
i dont pay attention to any standards to which i might be held (4 votes)
 13%
other (1 vote)
 3%
do you mind? im in the middle of a crossword here! (4 votes)
 13%
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comments

  • FluffyBullet says:

    Depends... Sometimes it makes me nervous and sometimes not, depends on if I'm confident in my ability or not myself.

    Aug 03, 2008 11:21 AM
  • littlewolf says:

    I don't know whether it has anything to do with nervousness or confidence where I am concerned. I think the higher the standard which people expect of me, the more I will try to rise to the challenge and meet that standard.

    Expectations, on the other hand, are a completely different matter, although, like standards, depend on the situation and environment. For example, I am invited to a cousin's birthday this afternoon, held in his aunt's house, who then said to me, smilingly, that I should wear religious outfit (to promote identity, to make her happy, to be religious). At which I baulked and have simply decided to skip the birthday rather than face the double edged sword of wear religious outfit (whereby the rest of the community ignore my atheism, me being English etc, the fact that it makes me feel uncomfortably deceitful, to be hypocritical and pretend to be something I am not), or wear something I am comfortable with (in which case, face the openly disapproving talk of my shamelessness in not wearing religious clothes and having no respect for faith, tradition, God, country, community, people etc.).

    So, expectations? I have no hesitation in shattering them when and where required. But not because of nervousness, but to uphold what I believe is right, to be true to oneself.

    Aug 17, 2008 03:14 AM
  • alisa says:

    i voted for the first one, but i feel like we should not worry about other people's standards of who we are, we should just be ourselves, and not worry about it.

    easier said than done, however. :)

    Oct 09, 2008 05:03 PM
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