💡 Self-Exploitation series For the full picture of why “I have to do it perfectly” never goes quiet — and where the exit lies — start with the cluster pillar. → Why “I Have to Do It Perfectly” Never Goes Quiet
Introduction: The “Good Person” Wearing Thin
Asked to do something, you cannot refuse. If someone’s mood clouds, you fret that you may have caused it. Reading the air of the room, you always play, ahead of time, the role being asked of you. Praised by those around as a good person, you yourself feel something wearing away, day by day. Faced with this, most people blame themselves: I have a character that worries too much, I am too sensitive.
Plenty of people want to fix their over-adaptation. What this article places is the question one step before it: is being worn down by meeting expectations a matter of your temperament — or the working of a structure by which the more you meet them, the thinner you grow?
Let me give the conclusion first. Over-adaptation is the state of endlessly optimising yourself to outside expectations, and the more you meet them, the more the ruler of what counts as important moves from inside you to outside. That very working of trying to be a good person is what thins you out.
📖 Contents
“Meeting Expectations” Deposits Your Ruler Outside
Look at what the act of meeting an expectation does inside the mind. When you meet someone’s expectation, for an instant you deposit the standard of judgment from inside yourself with the other party. You place what does the other want first and fit yourself to it.
Once or twice, this is healthy consideration. The problem arises when it becomes the ordinary state. Repeating the meeting, the circuit that checks what do I want to do gradually falls out of use, while the circuit that measures what will the other think alone grows thicker. Before long, the other’s expectation stands first, always, ahead of your own desire. The ruler of what counts as important moves, bit by bit, from inside to outside. The thinness you feel is the expression of this advance of the ruler’s movement.
The Interpersonal Version of “Diligence and Devotion Are Virtues”
Why can we so little stop meeting expectations? Behind it lies a deeply internalised norm: to devote yourself and meet expectations is good.
The value that makes a virtue of working and disciplining oneself takes, within relationships, the form serve for the other’s sake, answer when asked. Under this norm, refusing, or putting yourself first, drags guilt behind it. So even worn down by over-meeting, you think the fault is a self that cannot meet more. This direction — attributing the cause of the problem not to structure but always to the inside of the self, to a self still not enough — is exactly the same as the structure of overworking. Only the party you answer to differs, work or people; the working of endlessly handing yourself outward does not change.
▸ How this working of endlessly handing yourself outward appears as an inability to rest is treated in not being able to stop overworking is not a matter of will.
The Exit Is Not to Become a Cold Person
So the road out of over-adaptation is not to push others away and become a cold person. That does not return the ruler from outside to inside; it merely cuts relationships, and the fundamental circuit does not change.
What is needed is to use again, before deciding whether to answer, the circuit that checks what do I want to do. The power to read the other’s expectation may stay as it is. Only, before it, pass once through the ruler on your own side. Thicken the thinned circuit again, little by little. And then answer what you want to answer, and, without guilt, draw a line at what you do not. Let me add: meeting expectations is not itself bad. The joy of serving others is real. It becomes a problem only when you keep moving on outside expectation alone, without passing through your own ruler. To answer, and to hand yourself over, are different things.
Conclusion: See the Direction — Thinner the More You Answer
Being worn down by meeting expectations is not because you are sensitive but because, repeating the meeting, the ruler of what counts as important moves from inside to outside. What supports it is the interpersonal version of the diligence norm — devotion is a virtue.
What is needed is not to become a cold person but to use again the circuit that checks what do I want to do and step, little by little, away from the habit of moving on outside expectation alone. Seeing the same consideration as a fault to be fixed, or dissecting it as the movement of the ruler — the next step changes. The whole picture is gathered in why “I have to do it perfectly” never goes quiet.
References
Academic papers and theory
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (1985) Plenum Press
- Weber, M. Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1905)
