Dear Tay,

I once heard, “The best things in life are unexpected because there are no expectations.” It is good to expect a lot from yourself and to strive to live at your full potential. However, expecting too much could lead to a life of longing and disappointment. You’ll learn that in life the greatest things you are aren’t always the things you had hoped you’d be. The greatest things you are are the things that set you apart. The things that you are despite of what other people want you to be.

In the world we live in we see the expectations of perfection, but to our world, expectation clouds reality. We are lost in the hunger for success. The world has many views of what an ideal person is, and sees perfection through many things. We see it through a girl with fame, drown in the spotlight. Her “perfectly shaped body” achieved only by the means of malnutrition. Her once gorgeous, shining hair now bleached and dyed to replicate the newest fad. She is seen in the magazines as the one who has it all, but as seen by herself as one who has nothing. We also see it through a girl with a brain, yearning for accomplishment in academics to put her ahead of everyone else. She sits in class clothed in a flouncy pink dress, palms sweating as she reaches yet another question on her test that she isn’t sure of. Her head races with ideas that she is a failure. Without remorse she runs her eyes across the paper of the bright young boy in front of her, rationalizing that it will help her succeed in the long run. Do we all have a miss conception of what perfection really is? Do we really aspire to be the world’s idea of successful?

Demand for perfection is all around us. We see it in our home. Around the dinner table, piled with decadent luxuries that Mother had prepared to enjoy while leisurely discussing the day our family had. Of course the questioning pursues “How is school going?” “How are your friends?” “When are you going to get a job?” “When is your next audition?” “How did that meeting go this morning?” Struck with fear you don’t know you’d dare disappoint such expectations. You failed two tests, your best friend is angry with you over something mean you had said, no place seemed to be hiring, you haven’t practiced audition songs in months, and you had completely forgotten about the meeting you had this morning. Your expectation for perfection haunts you. It weighs you down with hopes of being more than what you are, and buries you when your hopes are not achieved.

What you don’t realize is that your constant desire to be more than world’s demand of perfect is a feat you have already tackled. For me, I have my own idea of perfection. Perfection is happiness and laughter, contentment and confidence, love and excitement, acceptance and uniqueness. My expectation of you is to look upon others with love. Be a girl whose lips spread to a genuine smile when her eyes meet another’s, whose hands fold to pray at encounters of trial, whose eyes look only to the beauty in herself and to the beauty in everyone around her, and a girl whose heart leaps out to even those who least deserve it. You are that girl. You search for perfection in things that may fail you, like your mind or your appearance, and you look past the fact that you thrive with perfection from within you. You carry the constant worry that you won’t be good enough, but when put into perspective you are much more than that. Perhaps it is good that you carry this expectation of perfection, as long as you are carrying it for the fufillment of you and no one else. As long as you carry it in the hopes of being a better person, not just being seen as one.

Sincerely,

Yourself