Expectation is a subtle form of violence

"There is a moment in Great Expectations when Pip returns to the forge after months in London. New clothes. New manners. A polished version of a self he barely recognizes. Joe Gargery, the blacksmith who raised him, suddenly seems coarse and embarrassing. The shame is not really about Joe. It is about the boy Pip used to be. This is the moment Dickens shows us what expectation does."

"It does not just create ambition. It makes your present self contemptible. It poisons the past and sabotages the present in service of a future that may not even be yours. Pip does not suffer because he wants to grow. He suffers because he has swallowed a narrative about who he is supposed to become. Once he believes that only "gentleman" is acceptable, everything authentic feels insufficient. He starts performing a self he never chose."

Expectation mimics affection while demanding compliance, creating a mental architecture where deviation feels like failure. Expectation does not only create ambition; it renders the present self contemptible and corrupts memories of the past. A young person can become ashamed of origins after adopting an imposed ideal, performing an identity they did not choose. Expectation can similarly derail organizations by anchoring decisions to an imagined future and treating authentic options as insufficient. In product design, expectation installs pathways that prioritize compliance over authenticity and penalize deviation.

Read at Medium