I am the child of my mother, the brother of my sister, the consort and lover of my beloved, the student of my teachers and mentors, and the friend of my friend. To everybody else, I am just “somebody”.
But what does that entail? What does it mean to be child, brother, lover, student, friend? Do I have a split personality, am I different persons when around different persons? And what does it mean to be in a place where I have to play multiple roles at once?
More often than not we are rewarded or punished by the others based on the role they have assigned for us, and how well we fit the box. Do you fit the box perfectly, without either overstepping it or leave it too empty? Perfect! Have some approval!
Are you revolting against the assigned role and playing to another tune, well then, don’t expect to get any approval for what you ain’t doing.
In my experience, the roles assigned to us are more often than not golden cages to which we must conform rather than airports we can go anywhere from. Of course, this is not to say that some of the roles don’t include quite a lot of space and freedom. They do. But at some point or another, even the largest of cages still finds bars.
You get a direct experience of just how big of a space you have within a role prescribed for you when you either overstep a boundary or underperform. It’s either a “Why did you do this. I told you not to?” or it’s a “How could you not do this when you said you’ll do it?”. And then you know. As big a space as you may have, you’re TRAPPED.
The others have expectations of you. And they’ll be the first to point out, should you revolt, that you are no better than them. That try as you might to say you’re different and have no cages for them, you too have expectations of your own, different as they may be, but expectations none the less. Even if your expectation of them is for them not to have any expectations of you.
Now let’s get things straight here. Wishing and Entitlement are not the same thing. They can both be classified as expectation, for in both cases, the future scenario is considered qualitatively more pleasurable than the current circumstances. But while wishing is a preference not entailing obligation on the other side (Boy, I wish I would get a new Laptop for Christmas), entitlement would turn even hell over to get what it wants (How dare Santa not give me MY Laptop? I said I wanted a laptop, what part of that wasn’t clear? He should have the elves in charge of MY laptop fired!)
So a person who says “You have expectations too” is actually extremely right. It is actually impossible to be alive and not have expectations. The nature of life itself is to expand, and in order to expand, you must have a place (even an undefined one) to expand to. You need not specifically know what that place is, but you will know that there is something that you want.
But it is an entirely different thing if your expectation takes the form of a wish or an endowment claim. Most of us do not even think of our wishes and the depth of them, because we’re too busy formulating claims about our “Rights” which we have worked for and which are not being met, as if anybody cared about our rights.
When we see a person expressing full-heartedly his deepest wishes, most uf us automatically become defensive for the fear of not being asked something. We automatically assume he’s not just expressing a wish, but actually it’s a demand in disguise, but he lacks the integrity to step up and take the stigma of being “Demanding”.
As a whole species, we have somehow stigmatized, but also legitimized DEMANDING. If your reasons are sound enough (and they must be pretty sound to be valid), then you have a justified, and therefore undeniable claim for your demands. And if someone dare counter your demand just for being “Demanding”, then you are in the right to dismiss that opposition on the ground that yes, it is a demand, but you have all the right to that demand based on the legitimacy of your motives.
Nobody likes the demands of others, but everybody submits to them, if the demanding party has strong enough reasons for their demands. There can be any number of sources of legitimacy for demands, as outlandish as those demands bay be. Among the most popular we can include:
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The invocation of “Common Sense”
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Good manners
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Freedom of will and / or expression
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The right to independence and auto-determination
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Logic