Quotes & Sayings About Other People's Expectations

We have to steer our true life's course. Whatever your calling is in life! The whole purpose of being here is to figure out what that is as soon as possible, so you go about the business of being on track, of not being owned by what your mother said, what society said, whatever people think a woman is supposed to be when you can exceed other people's expectations and be defined by your own! — Oprah Winfrey

Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a recipe for failure. — Jandy Nelson

I felt trapped and fabricated in the fifties living up to other people's expectations. — Rosemary Clooney

The attachment to parental figures I am trying to describe here is an attachment to parents who have inflicted injury on their children. It is an attachment that prevents us from helping ourselves. The unfulfilled natural needs of the child are later transferred to therapists, partners, or our own children. We cannot believe that those needs were really ignored, or possibly even trampled on by our parents in such a way that we were forced to repress them. We hope that the other people we relate to will finally give us what we have been looking for, understand, support, and respect us, and relieve us of the difficult decisions life brings with it. As these expectations are fostered by the denial of childhood reality, we cannot give them up. As I said earlier, they cannot be relinquished by an act of will. But they will disappear in time if we are determined to face up to our own truth. This is not easy. It is almost always painful. But it is possible. In — Alice Miller

When I write, I write for myself, and I have high expectations ... so I'm just trying to meet those. I'm not going to distract myself with other people's expectations. — Hannah Kent

I couldn't afford to tangle myself up in other people's expectations and inevitable disappointment. It would be awful. An ever-expanding cycle of everyone feeling bad, like a bulimic serpent eating its own tail. — Alexis Hall

I believed that work would save me, make me happy, solve my problems; that if I absolutely wore myself out, happiness would be waiting for me on the other side of all that work. But it wasn't. On the other side was just more work. More expectations, more responsibility. I'd trained a whole group of people to know that I would never say no, I would never say "this is too much". I would never ask for more time or space, I would never bow out. And so they kept asking, and I was everyone's responsible girl. — Shauna Niequist

One of the things that my parents have taught me is never listen to other people's expectations. You should live your own life and live up to your own expectations, and those are the only things I really care about it. — Tiger Woods

It took me a long time to understand not to get caught up in other people's expectations. It really comes down to creative fulfillment. It took me a while to realize I don't want to just be on a show to be on a show. — Jim Gaffigan

Our heads are full of comparisons, needs for approval and attention, a desire to be at other places, imagining things could be better there and thus hating our reality.
We are the only ones to blame for our own suffering.
We hurt ourselves every time we think of how other people should behave according to our standards and then suffer when they appear to be individuals; every time we open a book with so many expectations about it from what we've heard and hoped it to be, and then close it in disappointment, realizing it's something totally different (maybe beautiful, inspiring and challenging, but nothing that met our expectations). — Lidiya K.

One of the obvious implications is that a person will have to face the fact that she cannot meet other people's expectations. This signals the end of what might be called the "camel" phase of human development. I believe it was Nietschze who suggested that for the first part of life, we are camels, trudging through the desert, accepting on our backs everybody's "shoulds" and "don'ts." Camels only know how to spit; they don't think for themselves or talk back. As the camel dies, a lion is born in its place. Lions discover both their roar and the art of preening. The lion may be a little shaky at first, so support and encouragement are vital. But once the camel begins to die (e.g., signaled by depression), there is no turning back. Symptoms occupy the space between the death of the camel and the birth of the lion. A therapist can be a good midwife during this liminal phase. — Stephen Gilligan

You can become so manipulated and controlled by what you think other people expect you to do that you literally live under the tyranny of other people's expectations. And what I call the shoulds and the oughts. I believe that hundreds of thousands of people miss their God-ordained destiny and they never really feel satisfied, content and fulfilled, because they're so busy trying to keep everybody else satisfied with them that they don't ever get around to doing what they really want to do. — Joyce Meyer

Accepted social gender roles and expectations are so entrenched in our culture that most people cannot imagine any other way. As a result, individuals fitting neatly into these expectations rarely if ever question what gender really means. They have never had to, because the system has worked for them. — Nicki Petrikowski

Yes. Mind you, sociopaths experience many of the same needs we all do," Hetheridge continued. "They attend school, maintain jobs. I believe they can even love, in the way little children love - a combination of wanting and demanding. But sociopaths have no conscience, no innate sense of responsibility toward others. They cannot believe other people have separate lives beyond the sociopath's own needs and expectations. Sociopaths are incapable of empathy, though the more intelligent ones are frequently able to fake it. And that's the key. — Emma Jameson

When you're young you have such expectations of each other. So many needs. And when you're older ... " He shrugs. "You want someone who understands. We've lived different lives. We've loved different people. But I think that there will always be that ... " He struggles for the right word. "That understanding we share. Of having grown up in the same world, of having live through the same memories. — Carrie Ryan

But imagine if we were the only people left. The last men on earth. I'd be the best golfer in the world right now. You'd be the only priest. And Ghost would be the only Sikh. Imagine that. A four-hundred-year religion terminating in a dope-head grease monkey."
"I thought you liked the bloke."
"I do. But think about it. All the people that made you feel worthless and small down the years. The bullies and bosses. All gone. It's exhilarating, if you think about it. Freedom from other people's expectations. We can finally start living for ourselves. — Adam Baker

I realized early in my career that precisely what one reader
doesn't like is what another reader loves. Collectively, any writer's audience presents a mishmash of expectations that can never all be met. What one-tenth of my readership may not be crazy about the other nine-tenths savors. The moment you start altering a book or a painting or any type of art as if it's a public collaborative, you crucify its soul. I'd rather irritate a few people and delight a lot than touch no one." ~ Karen Marie Moning — Karen Marie Moning

Shame forces us to put so much value on what other people think that we lose ourselves in the process of trying to meet everyone else's expectations. Shame: — Brene Brown

This was the part she hated, the part of a relationship that always nudged her to bail, the part where someone else's misery or expectations or neediness crept into her carefully prescribed world. It was such a burden, other people's lives. — Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe.
She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian
I'm not exactly sure what that means
this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand.
They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe."
I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask. — Kenneth Cain

I found out that "Shame is a reaction to other people's criticism, an acute personal chagrin at our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. Personal desires are sunk in the collective expectation. (Shame is) the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining control over adults — Paul G. Hiebert

The United States is primarily a guilt-based culture. The dominant method of social control in this country involves teaching people to feel guilt about not living up to personal expectations. Contrast this with shame-based cultures like Japan. As researchers Ying Wong and Jeanne Tsai explain in their paper, Cultural Models of Shame and Guilt, shame is "associated with the fear of exposing one's defective self to others. Guilt, on the other hand, is associated with the fear of not living up to one's own standards." In this formulation, guilt is based on failing to achieve personal ideals; shame is based on social exposure ["The Anti-Vaccine Movement Should Be Ridiculed, Because Shame Works," Gizmodo, February 6, 2015]. — Matt Novak

Admit it or not, you care about what others think about you. People who declare they don't are more likely pretentious. You cannot stop caring. It is in your nature. But it is absolutely wrong to live your life for others, to make your decisions based on other people's perceptions and expectations. — Grace Scott

It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. — Fulton J. Sheen

Within the first twenty years of our lives, before we are really adult, we make choices motivated by insecurity, fear, and other people's expectations; certinly not guided by clarity and wisdom. We plod along for years living with the wrong career or spousal choice, in a location we did not choose and perhaps do not like, and much more. One day we wake up restless and confused, and acknowledge that we have no agenda of our own, and that we have been living someone else's passion, their dream. — Joan Medlicott

Don't waste your life living out other people's expectations. — Tai Sheridan

SKANK is scribbled in ballpoint pen on my desk. I don't exactly know why my heart starts to thump. It's not like there aren't messages and other handiwork all over this school. Take auditorium seat J-8. I found out during last week's Expectations of Excellence assembly that it's got a faded image of a penis carved on the armrest. No one likes to sit in the Pecker Chair for an assembly. People make fun of you the whole day after that. Ask Rob. — Meg Medina

How can I be mad at her for finding her split-apart and wanting to be with him? As Guillermo said, the heart doesn't listen to reason. It doesn't abide by laws or conventions or other people's expectations either. — Jandy Nelson

Madeline knew how that was. So many people had ideas of what you should and shouldn't do, but in the end you had to decide for yourself. — Ellen Airgood

Most people never know more than a surface layer of each other's personalities. They take the bolder characteristics of a first impression at face value because they're lazy, and they carry those expectations and prejudices throughout the entire relationship. — Max Monroe

I think it's weird how vanilla people just jump into a bed and fuck and don't ever relish the moment, don't talk to each other about what works and what doesn't. So many people just expect sex to happen, but really great sex takes work, like everything in life. You have to talk to your partner. — Lexi Blake

Finally, while I don't want to disparage the traditional novel--I still prefer Dickens's Great Expectations over Kathy Acker's Great Expectations, though I'll take Lauren Fairbanks's Sister Carrie over Dreiser's any day--there's a whole other world of novels out there most people never even hear of, much less read. Let's go see. — Steven Moore

We tend to live down to other people's expectations, especially the people closest to us. It is more difficult to obtain approval of people who hold us in high regard than to accept the lower standards that other people hold of us. — Kilroy J. Oldster

What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it's appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going "my way," our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for
and then let go of
the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what "you" don't want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you. — Guy Finley

The constant struggle to feel accepted and worthy is unrelenting. We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone's expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful. Sometimes we turn these emotions inward and convince ourselves that we are bad and that maybe we deserve the rejection that we so desperately fear. Other times we lash out - we scream at our partners and children for no apparent reason, or we make a cutting comment to a friend or colleague. Either way, in the end, we are left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and alone. — Anonymous

No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural. — Ian Hamilton Finlay

When two people can't live up to each other's expectations, they'll look for their fantasized satisfaction in the next relationship, the next experience, the next excitement. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. — Frederick Salomon Perls

Even when we have realized oneness and nothingness, we still have our personal lives to manage, bodies to take care of, and mouths to feed, and you will know which one is yours and which ones are others', so you won't put food into another person's mouth when you are hungry. Also you won't kiss a rattlesnake or hug a cactus no matter how strong an affinity you feel toward them. But at the same time, we know these apparent separations are functional, not fundamental, and should be recognized as such without mistaking one for the other. I would call this apparent separation "functional ego," or you can call it your "character," which is the collection of your beliefs, habits, and other people's expectations. — Ilchi Lee

We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone's expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful. — Brene Brown

Problem with attempting to live up to other people's expectations was that you were destined to fail before you even began. I — Denise Grover Swank

Other people are not here to fulfill our needs or meet our expectations, nor will they always treat us well. Failure to accept this will generate feelings of anger and resentment. Peace of mind comes with taking people as they are and emphasizing the positive. — A.S.A Harrison

Every subsequent moral crisis of my life, moreover, has had precisely the pattern of this struggle over the first Communion, I have battled, usually without avail, against a temptation to do something which only I knew was bad, being swept on by a need to preserve outward appearances and to live up to other people's expectations of me. — Mary McCarthy

WI played a young Helena Bonham Carter in a BBC film called 'A Dark Adapted Eye,' and I thought she was a completely spellbinding person. Totally unmoved by other people's expectations, fashions or opinions. She's probably the coolest English actress there is. Incredibly idiosyncratic. — Honeysuckle Weeks

What messes us up a lot in this life is setting our expectations way too high and then being ashamed when we fail. What is worse is when we allow other people to make us feel ashamed for failing. What is worse than that is hiding and lying about our failure. It's ok to fail, especially when it's a significant life change and you gotta stand up for that right in this life. — Tanya Masse

I feel like I'm a New Yorker to the bone. But there is a lot of the South in me. I know there is a lot of the South in my mannerisms. There's a lot of the South in my expectations of other people and how people treat each other. There's a lot of the South in the way I speak, but it could never be home. — Jacqueline Woodson

I try not to think about the expectations of other people because there's always going to be expectations. — Stephanie Sigman

Once you feel like you're being dictated by other people's expectations, it usually backfires. — Rob Zombie

Do what makes you happy. Life is too short to live on other people's expectations — Amefil

I've had many occasions since that time to appreciate this timely advice. For me, the hardest part of learning always boils down to figuring out why I should care. Other people's expectations matter to me, but they rarely clinch the deal. I need to build up my own reasons to engage. But once I jump over that hurdle, I'm good to go. I — Todd Rose

Someone: You were pretty good at that thing, why'd you stop doing it?

Me internally: I get extremely anxious when I think about doing something I might possibly succeed at because I base my self-worth on my achievements and other people's approval. I am afraid because I know I will never be able to live up to my own unrealistic expectations. I hate making mistakes because they make me feel worthless. I take negative feedback too personally. I feel immense guilt over not doing things that I've been avoiding, which makes me avoid them more. I feel ashamed and inadequate due to how difficult it is for me to stay committed to anything. I'm worried that I'll just end up disappointing myself and the entire world and I am convinced that if I failed I would literally die.

Me externally: idk I guess I've just been kinda busy lol — Unknown

We search our entire lives to create a genuine and reliable self that can relate with other people and faithfully express our artistic temperament. Our battle for personal authenticity requires us to penetrate layers of self-deception, conquer ego defense mechanism, and destroy a false self that is intent upon meeting other people's expectations. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Many of us, myself, included, considered our souls necessary collateral damage to get done the things we felt we simply had to get get done - because of other people's expectations, because we want to be know as highly capable, because we're trying to outrun an inner emptiness. And for a while we don't even realize the compromise we've made. We're on autopilot, chugging through the day on fear and caffeine, checking things off the list, falling into bed without even a real thought or feeling or connection all day long, just a sense of having made it through. — Shauna Niequist

How do we identify ourselves, and how do we settle into other people's expectations for our identity? — Tilda Swinton

Pride lets a man be skewered on the point of other people's expectations. — Mark Lawrence

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery
it recharges by running. You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by" absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury. — Bill Watterson

You have to learn to follow your heart. You can't let other people pressure you into being something that you're not. If you want God's favor in your life, you must be the person He made you to be, not the person your boss wants you to be, not even the person your parents or your husband wants you to be. You can't let outside expectations keep you from following your own heart. — Joel Osteen

Sexism occurs when we assume that some people are less valid or natural than others because of their sex, gender, or sexuality; it occurs when we project our own expectations and assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality onto other people, and police their behaviors accordingly; it occurs when we reduce another person to their sex, gender, or sexuality rather than seeing them as a whole, legitimate person. That is sexism. And a person is a legitimate feminist when they have made a commitment to challenging sexist double standards wherever and whenever they arise. An individual's personal style, mannerisms, identity, consensual sexual partners, and live choices simply shouldn't factor into it. — Julia Serano

There is a downside to casual sex: Sometimes it stops being casual. People develop a desire for something more. And when one person's expectations don't match the other person's, then whoever holds the highest expectations suffers. There is no such thing as cheap sex. It always comes with a price. — Neil Strauss

The God of the legalistic Christian, on the other hand, is often unpredictable, erratic, and capable of all manner of prejudices. When we view God this way, we feel compelled to engage in some sort of magic to appease Him. Sunday worship becomes a superstitious insurance policy against His whims. This God expects people to be perfect and to be in perpetual control of their feelings and thoughts. When broken people with this concept of God fail - as inevitably they must - they usually expect punishment. So they persevere in religious practices as they struggle to maintain a hollow image of a perfect self. The struggle itself is exhausting. The legalists can never live up to the expectations they project on God. — Brennan Manning

Though the evidence suggests that most people are caught up on this frustrating treadmill of rising expectations, many individuals have found ways to escape it. These are people who, regardless of their material conditions, have been able to improve the quality of their lives, who are satisfied, and who have a way of making those around them also a bit more happy. Such individuals lead vigorous lives, are open to a variety of experiences, keep on learning until the day they die, and have strong ties and commitments to other people and to the environment in which they live. They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult; they are hardly ever bored, and they can take in stride anything that comes their way. Perhaps their greatest strength is that they are in control of their lives. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

It's a little mysterious to people who feel that they are unfulfilled to find that the feeling actually comes from other people's expectations. Once you discover how self-esteem works, you will begin to live your life to the full and learn to build a defense of confidence against self-esteem issues ever happening again. — Genevieve Amor

Maybe part of the reason that love becomes such a volatile force in our lives when it's supposed to be so still and beautiful is that we keep reaching for that forever love. We can't just let it be what it is. We try to make feelings and interest sustain themselves for years and years when they just don't have that kind of staying power. But how much of it is a result of our own changing and how much is the fact that forever love comes with so many expectations and too much pressure? What if it's really that nobody is to blame, other than whoever instilled in us the idea that "forever" was the ultimate kind of love? Because what if we stopped expecting and started just being. I think that's what scares people. I think they choose to not love someone because of what it means for the long-term instead of having any interspersed bits of love. But those bits might be all we ever have. It's out of them that the rest grows. — Brianna Wiest

Making sure the person shared your interest in sushi and Wes Anderson movies and made you get a boner anytime you touched her hair would seem far too picky. Of course, people did get married because they loved each other, but their expectations about what love would bring were different from those we hold today. — Aziz Ansari

He seemed to think anyone was capable of anything, or at least he wouldn't exclude the possibility just because he thought he knew the person. And he insisted that this did not represent the worldview of an embittered pessimist. On the contrary, he had said. It would be much worse to expect good from other people, only to be disappointed when they didn't measure up to our high expectations. That would lead to resentment and contempt for humanity. — Jan-Philipp Sendker

There was just something about other people's expectations that made her freeze in place, unable to function. — Jessica Clare

Today I will realize that I'm powerless over other people's expectations of me. I'll think about what I want and consider that how I respond to others' needs will affect the course of my life. I will own my own power and choose the course that's right for me. — Melody Beattie

All throughout Torah, we find people looking for God, and not finding God, because God doesn't often conform to our expectations. God is somewhere other than the place we think to look. And our sages show that you can respond to God's hiddenness in many different ways. You can, like the writer of Lamentations, respond to God's hiddenness by mourning. Or, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, instead of asking where the God you thought you were looking for had gone, ask what God is like now. Or you can respond to God's hiddenness by being like Esther: if God is hiding, then you must act on God's behalf. If you look around the world and wonder where God has gone, why God isn't intervening on behalf of just and righteous causes, your very wondering may be a nudge to work in God's stead. — Lauren F. Winner

Living up to other people's expectations is always difficult. — Princess Tatiana Of Greece And Denmark

The hope that God has provided for you is not merely a wish. Neither is it dependent on other people, possessions, or circumstances for its validity. Instead, biblical hope is an application of your faith that supplies a confident expectation in God's fulfillment of His promises. Coupled with faith and love, hope is part of the abiding characteristics in a believer's life. — John C. Broger

The easiest way to maintain happiness is to lower your expectations of other people and raise them of yourself! — Garrison Wynn

On the plane leaving Tokyo I'm sitting alone in back twisting the knobs on Etch-A-Sketch and Roger is next to me singing "Over the Rainbow" straight into my ear, things changing, falling apart, fading, another year, a few more moves, a hard person who doesn't give a fuck, a boredom so monumental it humbles, arrangements so fleeting made by people you don't even know that it requires you to lose any sense of reality you might have once acquired, expectations so unreasonable you become superstitious about ever matching them. Roger offers me a joint and I take a drag and stare out the window and I relax for a moment when the lights of Tokyo, which I never realized is an island, vanish from view but this feeling only lasts a moment because Roger is telling me that other lights in other cities, in other countries, on other planets, are coming into view soon. — Bret Easton Ellis

Clothing, hair, shoes, accessories: these were props, visual cues, that people used to filter information and make instant assessments out of random connections, to categorize and assign value to those who populated their world. And layered beneath the props for sight came those for smell, and hearing, and more, that sense of intangibility that allowed people to read nuance and body language and interpret what the other senses didn't grasp directly; cues that together formed a picture that matched perceptions based on expectations and that, when adjusted one way or the other, filtered past the gatekeepers of the mind, allowing Munroe to become whatever she needed to be. — Taylor Stevens

Nonmonogamous folks recognize that during a lifetime you can and will be attracted to other people even if you are in a wonderful, fulfilling relationship; they make room in their relationship for these attractions rather than allow them to cause anxiety, jealousy, and unreasonable expectations. — Tristan Taormino

By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other. — Terence McKenna

Folks who thrive in God's grace give grace easily, but the self-critical person becomes others-critical. We "love" people the way we "love" ourselves, and if we are not good enough, then no one is. We keep ourselves brutally on the hook, plus our husbands, our kids, our friends, our churches, our leaders, anyone "other." When we impose unrealistic expectations on ourselves, it's natural to force them on everyone else. If we're going to fail, at least we can expect others to fail; and misery loves company, right? — Jen Hatmaker

Other people can't cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others don't make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness. — Lama Surya Das

Invitations not obligations: Our expectations of other people can be a big drain on our emotions. When we ask someone to do something, or, worse, have a belief that someone should do something and insist that he or she comply, it places a great stress on us. And the other person, noting our anxiety and insistence that they conform to our expectations, may actually become less inclined to respond as we like.
Instead, consider everything you want someone else to do to be an invitation that the other person may or may not choose to accept. Of course, if you are an employer or a parent who is trying to ensure a child's safety, you must have parameters and ground rules. Everyone else, however, should be released from the obligation of doing, being, living, and acting as you feel they should. — Will Bowen

A lot of people never find the person God created them to be. They're too busy trying to live up to other people's expectations, or they try to create themselves in the image of a person they admire or envy. Just because we respect someone or think their life might be more exciting than ours doesn't mean God created us to be just like them. Sometimes we have to ignore the people in our lives so we can hear the voice of God ... But making a decision to put someone else first out of love isn't the same thing as putting them first out of fear. Because you're afraid they won't love you if you don't act the way they might want you to. — Nancy Mehl

I know so much about other people's expectations and so little about my own. — Martin Pistorius

One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas - and you have to work through it all. — V.S. Naipaul

Happiness, as far as we are concerned, is achieved through living a meaningful life, a life that is filled with passion and freedom, a life in which we can grow as individuals and contribute to other people in meaningful ways. Growth and contribution: those are the bedrocks of happiness. Not stuff. This may not sound sexy or marketable or sellable, but it's the cold truth. Humans are happy if we are growing as individuals and if we are contributing beyond ourselves. Without growth, and without a deliberate effort to help others, we are just slaves to cultural expectations, ensnared by the trappings of money and power and status and perceived success. — Joshua Fields Millburn

I have long dreaded the thought of getting to the end of life and regretting that I allowed my own timidity or other people's expectations to determine the course of my life. I had decided at a much younger age that several of my beliefs should determine the course of my life ... I ... believe that Waengongi, the Creator, has an epic script into which my minute presence has been written. — Steve Saint

The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. — Julia Cameron

Never get your sense of worth from outside yourself. Never fall into the trap of thinking that who you are is not enough and that you need other people's approval, love and validation in order to feel that you're of value. Never allow external things, places, people and circumstances to determine or tell you how much you're worth. It's called self-worth, not others' worth. — Luminita D. Saviuc

Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation. — Josh Kaufman

Our identity sets the tone for all we do and become. Christians who live out of who they really are cannot be crippled by the opinions of others. They don't work to fit into other people's expectations, but burn with the realization of who the Father. says they are. — Bill Johnson

He was swimming in a sea of other people's expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that. — Robert Jordan

So, before we go too much further, now is a good chance to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we are all a little guilty of sometimes living someone else's aspirations for us instead of our own. And this is a great time to say 'No more!' to living out of fear and other people's expectations. — Bear Grylls

UNREALITY IS THE HALLMARK of narcissism. Whether it's idealizations, expectations of perfection, manufactured images, illusions, distortions of fact, catastrophizing or other kinds of exaggerations, denial, or outright lying, Narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid any reality that evokes shame and to promote fanatasies that sustain their grandiosity and omnipotence. They require accomplices for this, people to admire them and do their bidding, — Sandy Hotchkiss

I think people who try to run their marriages according to other people's expectations are insane. It is quite hard enough to keep a marriage together till death do you part- which I think should be the aim, even if it can't always succeed- without trying to do it to please other people. A good marriage is whatever suits the participants, and our marriage suited us fine. — Lynn Barber

Using the phrase business ethics might imply that the ethical rules and expectations are somehow different in business than in other contexts. There really is no such thing as business ethics. There is just ethics and the challenge for people in business and every other walk in life to acknowledge and live up to basic moral principles like honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and caring. — Michael Josephson

Now, even when I make an outfit for myself, I wonder what other people will think. The truth is that I secretly love what seems to be my own individuality, and I hope I always will, but fully embodying it is another matter. I always want everyone to think I am a good girl. Whenever I am around a lot of people, it is amazing how obsequious I can be. I fib and chatter away, saying things I don't want to or mean in any way. I feel like it is to my advantage to do so. I hate it. I hope for a revolution in ethics and morals. Then, my obsequiousness and this need to plod through life according to others' expectations would simply dissolve. Oh, — Osamu Dazai

You can't base your life on other people's expectations. — Stevie Wonder

I wondered if there was any way to live amongst other people and refuse to be harnessed by their expectations and dependencies. — Robin Hobb

Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior. When people are frightened enough, they turn to governments for protection. Because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda. — Adam Kokesh

I don't think you play for other people's expectations, you know. You don't go and become a lawyer because your mother or father want you to, you don't become a coach because somebody wants you to. — Mike Krzyzewski

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you. In short, entertainment fulfills our expectations. Art, on the other hand, makes no compromise for public taste as it inspires us to consider life's complexities and ambiguities. Art is the opposition testing the strength of societal and cultural values-values that are thoughtlessly adopted by the mass of individuals living unexamined lives and all who cannot imagine a different way of seeing life. — William Missouri Downs

Didn't normal simply mean conforming to other people's expectations? — Jim Buckner

No other religion has a God who serves His people rather than demanding service of them. This is why for Martin Luther justification was the chief article of the faith. Christ turned over our human expectations so that His glorious grace might be our faith and confession. God destroys our acquisitive holiness by giving us a perfect ransom that we cannot acquire. This ransom frees us from constantly seeking to put ourselves on top. We are free to be last, because Christ exalts us. — Scott Murray