After tossing and turning for an hour, I realized that it was a fool’s errand. There was no way I could get any sleep when tomorrow was going to solidify my last three years as either a success or failure. It was the day of my GCE O-levels results.

My friend came over so we could view the results together and when the clock struck the appointed time we both logged into the Cambridge website and kept refreshing the portal until the results came. With anticipation, we were both praying for good results, however, our wishes were very different. While I was busy wishing for straight A*s (the highest score you can get) unbeknownst to me, my friend was hoping for straight As and Bs.

Both of our prayers were cut short when the results came onto our screens. Before I could view my results, a shriek of joy erupted beside me, and my friend started jumping around the room with uncontrollable joy and excitement. I glanced over at his screen, and he had gotten straight As. I was confused as to why he was so happy. But before this train of thought could continue, I took a look at my grades.

I had gotten two As…

While the others were A*s, I was still quite disappointed as I had envisioned and hoped for getting all A*s. 

The juxtaposition of the entire scenario would have made an outsider laugh out loud. A person who had gotten (objectively speaking) extremely good grades was sulking quietly while a person who had gotten relatively worse grades was brimming with excitement.

Naturally, my parents were also very happy with my grades and so were my friends’ parents. Every acquaintance congratulated me as if it was a humongous achievement. Everyone was content except me.

Now, I realize this may seem snotty, illogical and even infuriating to some of you and that is reasonable. Crying about not getting the perfect grades is a very petty thing to do especially when I was blessed with such good grades.

However, the person who was expecting a C on a subject but ended up getting a D and I share a similar problem. Expectations. Our expectations often determine our happiness and contentment which accompanies a given outcome. When the outcome exceeds our expectations, happiness is almost a guarantee, even if objectively, the outcome wouldn't satisfy everyone. Still, for that person with that particular expectation, it is beyond satisfactory. The inverse also holds true.

Me and my friend are a perfect example of this. While my friend was relishing, I was upset at my result, even though I had gotten objectively better grades. It all comes down to our expectations. It might seem easy to conclude that we should just lower our expectations. However, I don’t always think that is possible because we subconsciously set our expectations according to the effort we put in. Expectations are our desired result from an activity and provided that we gave it our all, it is human to expect an outcome that reflects this.

Therefore, I believe it's not wrong for a person who got an A to not be happy about it. It might seem entitled from an outsider’s perspective but we aren’t aware of the degree of effort he must have put in to expect something greater than an A. 

It is normal to be sad when we don’t achieve our goals. Therefore, we should not criticize or bully those who are disappointed, as they have the right to their emotions and should not be judged negatively for them.