How many people are comfortable with not knowing? When someone asks you a question, do you have anxiety if you don’t know the answer? If you answer, and someone else corrects you, do you feel stupid or bad about yourself because you didn’t have the right answer? When did we all start to think that we always needed to have the right answers all of the time? When did we start to think that not knowing something made us less than others or bad or not good enough? School? Well that certainly is a place where not knowing the right answer will get you punished. Work? I know a few people who lost jobs for not having the right answers, so yes. In our homes? How many children are told they are worthless, lazy, stupid, never do anything right, always mess up, and are told that every time they don’t have the right answer to something? How many times do we appreciate when people do have the right answers? How many times do we appreciate when someone says they don’t know or are unsure?
Practice in mindfulness: Today, notice. Notice how many times someone else expected you to have an answer or do something right. Notice if you met that expectation or not. Notice their response if you did, if you didn’t, if you were unsure. Notice your response to how you performed to the expectation, and to the other person’s response to your performance.
If you are in traffic, and someone gives you a gesture to indicate you are not performing to their expectations, notice how that feels, and what do you say to yourself.
If you are at home and someone wants something from you, can you do it, do you know it, are you able to meet their expectations? How does that feel if you are or are not? How do they a respond?
The idea is that we all create this sense of needing to be perfect within ourselves and we put it on others too. We get so angry when others do not meet our expectations. We think, “People should be . . .” fill in the blank. We also get so angry with ourselves when we do not meet our own or other’s expectations. We think, “We should be . . .” fill in the blank. What if that wasn’t true? What if people should be just how they are, imperfect? I know, right? What if we are all just as we are supposed to be?
Today, notice the pressure you put on yourself, that others put on you, and imagine a world where no one put that kind of pressure on anyone. What kind of world would that be? Would it be a world of lazy ass people who never did anything because no one had any expectations of them? Would it be a world where people felt safe enough to try new things, to step outside of their comfort zones, take risks, without the worry of “failing to meet expectations”? If we felt safe enough to try, would we be able to achieve more that our fear inspires us to create and achieve now? It’s something to consider. Which world would you rather create and live in?
-Namaste