Expecting Nothing More or Less

Posted December 10, 2015 by Tara Pealer

It’s the end of the semester. I have two assignments left, two days of work, and four days. I’m trying not to stress out.

However, looking at the semester, I’m trying to make sure that I’ve achieved the one goal I set out for myself: To Have No Expectations.

I like to theme my school years. Junior year, for example, was the Year of Yes, and I said yes to every opportunity I could, from entering the honors program to becoming a head tutor. Senior year was my Year of No, and that year I did my best to not add extra work to my overfull schedule.

Entering Grad School and moving to Boston, however, required a new focus. I’d learned a lot between the yes year and the no year, and I knew what I could handle without freaking out.

So this time around, I decided that my focus would be to have no expectations. I wouldn’t expect classes to be difficult or easy. I wouldn’t expect myself to always have it all together. I wouldn’t expect other people to always know what I was doing, or thinking, or going through. I wouldn’t expect Boston to be either a nightmare or a dream world.

I would, instead, try to focus on experiencing the events and people around me to best learn. I’d allow myself to not be an expert at something.

This semester, however, I ran into roadblocks where the moment I began to expect something and it didn’t happen exactly the way I wanted, I’d panic. I would have to go back and remind myself that I wasn’t expected to be perfect. I wasn’t expected to be a card carrying adult, because no one gives out cards that say ‘Tara has the permit to Adult but only between dawn and dusk’ or ‘Adulting License (limited)’. Everyone kind of just acts like we all have the full adult license. I’ve talked about the imposter syndrome before, and I think one of the important things, whether you’re in grad school, or considering entering, or applying, is to allow yourself to just experience the process. If you don’t expect there to be a set path or a fancy business card handed out to signify that ‘Yes, I’m here! I’ve made it! I’m an Adult!’ then you’re able to allow yourself the space to just be in the moment. I think, personally, that’s when and where I learned the most.

The thing about setting that as my theme, however, is that I expected myself to be able to break down all of my expectations immediately. So I don’t know how successful I was, but I know that I tried. Good luck on finals everyone, and I’ll see you on the other side of next week!