Doing what's expected of you & sticking to "the plan"

I think everyone has a sense of duty. A feeling of burden when it comes to living up to other people's expectations of you. A feeling of honour. And different people have a lot of different expectations of you. Your mum wants you to "be happy", and get a family. Your friends want you to entertain them and make your company enjoyable to them. Your boss wants you to add the value you're being paid for to the company. I'm sure some people get this feeling of duty more than others.  It might be a cultural thing as well - as I'm writing this, I'm reminded of the Chinese/Eastern culture of strictly trying to live up to your parent's expectations of you.

I know I've certainly had this feeling. With regards to adding worth to society: first with my father, as a child, and now at work. Every time I make a mistake at work, I feel the weight of expectation growing larger. And recently that burden has started to feel unbearable.

And sometimes, the biggest burden of expectation that I have, is the expectation I have of myself. I have very high expectations of myself, and maybe I've let them get away from me as I've found it harder to keep all of them in check. I'm very aware of the brief time we all have on this Earth, and I want to fill my life with meaningful activity and leave having made a real positive impact.

I've started turning everything into tasks. "Go shopping. Eat. Sleep. Shower. Work out. Play football. Got to work. Socialise. Meet a nice girl. Ask her out so that I'm not alone by the age of 40".

This burden has even become so great at work that I've started to become unproductive because of it. Every time I make a small mistake, I find it harder to think. And it's a downward cycle from there.

Something's got to give.

I could either go full-on crazy and quit my job, untie myself from anything linked to society as we know it and go on a complete bender travelling around the world doing crazy shit. Sometimes I feel like I want to do this one.

Or I could recognise the problem and try to shift my outlook on what's going on.

I used to enjoy work. Enjoy the challenge. Enjoy the mastery of being able to use a new piece of equipment. Now I just see it as a necessity. Something that needs to be understood to continue business as usual. And therein lies the problem.

Awareness of people's expectation of me has completely shifted my outlook of things being "fun activities" to "necessary tasks so that I can function in society and not look like a friendless crazy person."

And, in a weird way, my own expectations of myself - to have a meaningful life - has counter-intuitively sapped all the fun and meaning out.

What can I do about it?

Well, I need to make things enjoyable again. This, in turn, means that I need to do a few things:
1. Stop caring so much about people's expectations
2. Be mindful about turning everything into tasks: stop to enjoy the moment every now and again
3. Just do what I want to do and if people don't like it... well, that's their problem.

Of course... there are complications. I can't rock up tomorrow and, after my boss telling me, "Guy we need to study a few of these devices", just turn around and shout in his face, "FUCK YOU AND YOUR EXPECTATIONS!!". No. I don't think that would go down very well (although, thinking about it, it's funny how many films use this form of emotional release for their protagonists. I can think of two straight off the bat: Fight Club and Wanted. I guess a lot of people feel the same way I'm feeling).

But I can start doing things for me again. Within the rules. I need to study a few devices? Sure. That's fine. But I'll see if I can fiddle around with something, learn something that's not necessary, but just for me. I'll start trying to add fun back in.

Then, after that, I'll start re-addressing what expectations are truly necessary for my well-being. Yes, I have a duty to entertain my friends to a point, but in the end, if I turn around to them and say "fuck your expectations" (in a friendly way, of course), and they disappear, well, they weren't friends to begin with anyway.