Up to whose expectations am I trying to live?

The too-easy answer for a person with a Christian spirituality like myself is God’s.

That’s the “right” answer. The textbook answer. In light of the goodness and power and perfection of God, how could any other set of expectations be considered?

The problem with the “right” answer is that truncates our thinking about the issue before it even begins. We know that God never expects humans to be less than human. So free and responsible thinkers we must continue to be.

The “good boy/good girl” answer is to cooperate with those under whose authority we work. Our job is to meet the expectations of our boss. This option seems reasonable at first blush… that is until we experience our first supervisor whose expectations are not so reasonable.

The problem with the “good boy/good girl” answer is that, again, we find ourselves checking our brains, our skills and our experience at the door in deference, in this case, to the brain, skills and experience sitting higher on the organizational chart.

This is a child’s response to expectations. “You’ll do it because I said so.” The rationale is simply a passive submission to authority. No discussion of issues. No debate of alternatives. No contribution of personal wisdom. Except maybe in crisis or in the military, it is never healthy for an adult to show up at work as a child.

The “noble” answer is to throw yourself in front of the bus to save the others. Your spouse’s happiness is more important than your own so you sacrifice the career that would be the best fit for you in order to keep him or her happy. Your co-worker’s stresses and struggles are more important than yours, so you sacrifice your own work quality in order to help them with theirs.

The problem with the “noble” answer is that it devalues you at enormous personal cost. You cooperate in your own self-diminishment under the guise of putting others’ needs and interest ahead of your own.

Notice I said, “guise.” This is a tough one for those of us who hold values that include sacrificial compassion on behalf of others. I am making a distinction between a free and responsible, adult choice to care for another at some personal loss and the trapped and powerless deep belief that you don’t deserve, aren’t worth, shouldn’t have or are selfish if you have anything good while someone else is in need.

I suggest we set our own expectations of ourselves. Doing so would be an exercise of the free and responsible choice God has entrusted to us. Doing so would be an adult response to the commitments, responsibilities and organizational structures with which we have chosen to involve ourselves. Doing so would be a mutual and interactive encounter with the other people in our lives who have their own needs, aspirations and complex lives.

The problem of setting and living up to our own expectations would come only if our expectations were disconnected from reality. Disconnected from our spirituality, disconnected from our workplace responsibilities, disconnected from our commitments and relationships.

Instead of dying under the weight of expectations coming at us from every direction, I’m going to try living up to the expectations I set for myself. I’ll bet I please God, my boss and my key relationships in ways no one even imagined.

Keeping It Real is a column where I put what I am learning out on the table. No faking. No posturing. No pretending. Just learning. Always learning. 
Beware of the leader who is not always learning.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 10:05 am and is filed under Keeping It Real, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.