When Our Values Become Expectations

Let’s be honest here, if you hold certain values really high, you get frustrated when you feel others do not uphold them.

I just bought my Jeep Wrangler and put the money down, and I’m still waiting a week later for the keys. Even though they need to do a service, the parts are there, and they want to get that finished and get a second key cut. My value is: get a product to a customer as soon as possible. It also doesn’t help that companies like Amazon get you a product pretty fast, so it creates a perception that this should be everywhere. And when something doesn’t match that value, irritation comes in.

The issue with some of these values isn’t that it’s a problem to uphold them ourselves. Holding our own standards is healthy. The problem comes when we try to enforce or believe that others should hold to our standard. This often goes deeper than we realise. Perhaps as a child you felt you were made to uphold the values of your parents. We see this a lot in individuals who grew up in strict religion, one foot out of line and penalties after congregation or sermon. I have a close friend who used to get a smack after church if he was too loud in church. His dad would give him this look and he knew what was going to happen. He explains it as good teaching and, in some aspects, I would agree that teaching respect of others and environments is healthy, but how we go about it makes a big difference.

And we also see how people hold their behaviour behind closed doors, very different to what they show in public. Almost like they know it won’t be accepted by society, but they still hold onto it in private. Usually this comes from a place of protection of the ego. A clear pattern in narcissistic abuse on a partner — “can’t let people see me as anything other than perfect.” It’s a bit sickening how people can be one way and another behind closed doors. In fact, it’s a little scary. But it is human. People do this because they are afraid of being judged, afraid of being exposed, afraid of losing the image they project.

The work here is to genuinely ask:

what values do we hold high, and are we actually enforcing these onto others?

What is it about someone not upholding our values that threatens us?

Where did these values even come from in the first place?

Did you choose them, or were they taught, forced, or absorbed without question?

When we delve deeper into our actions from our values, we start to see that it really doesn’t matter if another person holds them or not. Ask yourself: does it matter if someone I care about upholds my values over someone I don’t care about, and why? Is there a perception of control over the person you care about that doesn’t exist with someone you don’t know who doesn’t uphold your values? Some people find that when they can’t control an outcome, they are less bothered by it, but why do we need to control or uphold a value in someone close to us in the first place? How does it affect us?

This is the interesting part. We tend to push our values hardest onto the people we are closest with, but not onto strangers. Why? Because somewhere inside we link their behaviour to our identity, our safety, or our sense of order in the world. Another person not holding our values feels like a violation of something internal, even though, logically, it has nothing to do with us.

When we can separate our personal values from our expectations of others, everything softens. The irritation goes. The tension goes. The emotional pressure goes. We stop trying to force someone into the mould we created for comfort. And we realise that another person’s way of doing life does not threaten our own, unless we believe it does.

The real work is being able to hold our values without making them someone else’s responsibility. Let people be who they are. Let yourself be who you are. And if someone in your life has completely different values, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Values are personal. They can help guide us. But when we try to force them outward, that’s when they become expectations, and expectations almost always lead to disappointment, conflict, or disconnection.

Your value is yours, it doesnt need to be anothers. It can be expressed but enforcing it where it shouldn't doesnt help. Relationships are not a business where we are creating company values actioned buy employees, and like most businesses, we also dont need to be around other who may not hold our same standards or values. This isn't about right or wrong values, whether people should or should not uphold certain values in different environments but understanding where are values come from and where our bahviour comes from when we percieve others are not aligned with are values.