Expectations are tricky things, and we deal with them every day in the systems we create – community expectations, religious expectations, and expectations with friends and acquaintances. In a relationship with your spouse, expectations help to reinforce the system your household relies on to conduct its business. You expect that the bills will be paid, you expect that the dog will be walked, and so on. But as a lot of parents know, when you place those same expectations on children who don’t have a say in how the system runs – it can lead to problems. So think about those community expectations, religious expectations, and the systems they create. Who had a seat at the table in creating those expectations? And as a result – what consequences do we now live with?
Today we’re having a conversation with Simon Goettl about how personal, familial, and societal expectations intersect – and how those expectations can contribute to resentment in some cases, and to success in others.
