Exceeding Social Expectations

A philosophy professor once told me that a man must surpass the social expectations surrounding him. This applies to everyone: entrepreneurs, employees, civil servants, intellectuals… every kind of person needs to respond to what is expected of them and, in a way, exceed those expectations.

What are these expectations today? They vary immensely depending on social class, gender, and various other criteria, but the basic one is: that an adult person can support himself and his family.

He said this is especially important for intellectuals, as they need to have their philosophical production deeply rooted in their own philosophy of life, making them one and the same. Otherwise, everything they produce would be false, worthless, and lead to numerous errors.

To illustrate this point, he mentioned the case of an intellectual who said he wouldn’t worry about taking care of his own wife and children to focus on his “intellectual career.” In the end, he achieved neither: he created a flawed philosophy that only distanced people from the truth and fell into obscurity, dying alone.

I internalized this teaching and pondered over it many times throughout my life: whether in moments when my ventures succeeded, during life’s unpredictable turns that led me off course, or even in times of material hardship. I always thought that I needed to “exceed social expectations” and take care of those I loved and who were close to me.

But this can lead to other problems later on. As a person gets a good job, provides a good health plan for their family, drives a nice car, and buys a large house… they risk becoming trapped by these social expectations, clinging to something that should be merely secondary.

Suddenly, the person becomes their job, caring much more about the status of their profession and/or social condition, the things they have, the trips they take, and who their friends are. Over time, they begin to betray those closest to them because of this attachment: trading the spouse who has always been by their side for a younger and more attractive one, seeing their children less, distancing themselves from those lofty projects they once had, and, after a few years, becoming completely unrecognizable.

Most people who manage to meet social expectations do not exceed them: they remain trapped in them forever, in a typical case where, as Tyler Durden would say, “the things you own end up owning you.” They are eternally stuck in the layer of material satisfaction and never abandon these achievements that have now become limiting in order to finally reach deeper waters.

It is difficult to detach from titles, achievements, material goods, and everything that, in fact, you have earned with great effort. But considering them as dust is part of the intellectual journey that everyone must undertake if they one day wish to reach the Truth and see it face to face.

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