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Swetha Vimalkumar: Expectations

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High expectations can push you to be your best self, but they can also harm relationships and your self-worth. Swetha Vimalkumar has this Perspective.

Thousands of high schoolers across the Bay Area, including me, are well acquainted with pressure. The “do more, do it better, do it faster” lifestyle also has a way of changing familial relationships.

My parents’ desire to help me become the best version of myself gives meaning to my hard work. But sometimes, it is also a layer of stress to my chaotic life. They push me to take up more extracurriculars, more coursework, more household responsibilities, as if it’s as easy as snapping my fingers. They tell me it’s because I’m their daughter, and they know I can do better. And because I’m their daughter, I have turned their perfect image of me, a girl I know I am not, into a goal I must achieve.

I remember the time I got a B on a physics test. I felt horrible, not because my grade would drop, but because of the disappointment and confusion I was met with at home. My dad wondered aloud why I hadn’t done as well this time.

Maybe I didn’t double-check my answers thoroughly enough. Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept well the day before, and couldn’t concentrate during the test. My mom consoled me, saying that this isn’t me, and that I could fix it next time. I nodded, unable to meet their eyes. How could I tell them that this is me? It was me who struggled with the concepts despite days of studying. And yet I refused to shatter their image of me by asking for help.

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Such incidents made me realize the extent to which my contentment with myself depended on my parents’ happiness with me. My desire to please my parents and become more accomplished, skilled, and intelligent in the future is making me ashamed of who I am in the present.

I love them, and know they only want what’s best for me. Their confidence keeps me motivated to do better everyday. But sometimes, I wonder how they know what I want, and whether they know how scared I am that I might someday let them down.

I don’t know how to tell them all this, so I say nothing.

With a Perspective, I’m Swetha Vimalkumar.

Swetha Vimalkumar lives in Cupertino and loves to read books.

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