I have been called “too much” before.
Not always in those words.
Sometimes it sounded like you expect a lot. Sometimes like you're very particular. Sometimes like a small laugh, and must be nice to be so picky.
For a long time, I took it as a warning.
I lowered my expectations a little.
Then a little more.
I told myself to be grateful. To be easy. To not ask for too much.
And slowly, without noticing, I started living by standards that weren't really mine.
They were standards I had absorbed.
From family, from culture, from old jobs, from people who meant well and people who didn't.
Take what you're given. Don't complain. Be thankful anyone hired you. Don't make it awkward.
Some of that came from a good place. Humility. Gratitude. Respect.
I still carry those values.
But somewhere along the way, gratitude turned into accepting things I shouldn't have accepted.
Being spoken to in a way that made me feel small. Work that asked for everything and offered back very little. Friendships where I always reached out first. Rooms where I was useful but never truly valued.
And each time I felt uncomfortable, I asked myself the same question.
Am I expecting too much?
This year, I finally asked a different one.
Too much compared to what?
Compared to what I was used to accepting? Compared to what someone else decided I deserved? Compared to a version of me who was still surviving, still afraid to lose what she had?
That version of me had very low standards, and honestly, she had to. When you are far from home and starting over, you take what you can get and you make it work.
But I am not her anymore.
I have built a life.
I know what I bring.
I know how hard I work, how much I care, and how much I give.
And when you know your own worth, your standards naturally rise to meet it.
That isn't arrogance.
It is alignment.
Having standards doesn't mean expecting perfection from everyone.
It means knowing what I will no longer explain away. It means I can be kind and still say that doesn't work for me. It means I can be grateful for an opportunity and still recognize when it has stopped growing me. It means choosing quality over quantity in people, in work, in how I spend my energy.
And here's the part that surprised me.
Most of my standards are not about other people at all.
They are about me.
How I speak to myself when I make a mistake. Whether I keep the promises I make to myself. Whether I let myself settle for “fine” when I know I want more.
The highest standard I'm learning to hold is simply this: I won't abandon myself to make a room more comfortable.
If someone still calls that “too much,” I can live with that now.
Not everyone has to understand my standards.
They only have to be mine.
So I'll leave you with the question that changed things for me:
Which of your standards did you actually choose, and which did you just inherit?
Look at what you tolerate. Look at what you explain away. Look at the moments you make yourself smaller so things stay easy.
Then ask yourself whether the woman you are today would still agree to them.
You're allowed to raise the bar. You're allowed to outgrow what you once accepted.
You're not too much.
You've just stopped settling for too little.
Until the next page, — Miss Joo