I didn’t realize the extent to which some kids face pressure to excel until I moved to a major city and began to work with affluent families there.

Though these kids enjoyed certain privileges and choices that I had not had, they were also expected to follow a certain path in life. They were expected to be exceptional students and go to exceptional colleges.

Presumably, to have exceptional lives.

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This American Life, the long-running public radio show, had a great piece about people who didn’t realize until adulthood that they believed something that wasn’t true.

One woman, having seen “X-ING” signs on crosswalks, thought “x-ing” was a word, pronounced “zing.”

Another didn’t know that you could have variety in your meals — her family had chicken every single night.

We all have beliefs and conventions that we consider normal and correct, and we will defend them if challenged. However, it makes sense to evaluate whether our ways are still working for us.

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Years ago, I accompanied my grandmother’s choir on a trip to Italy. It was one of those regional tours that involve early wake-up times, many hours trapped on a charter bus, and surprise trips to Tuscan wineries for which your tour leader gets a kickback.

I have a number of grim stories to tell from the experience, but one mundane one always stands out: As I was tearing my way through Audrey Niffenegger’s inspired novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, my grandmother was poking her way through a thriller by a second-rate author. She would read half a page, grumble about how boring the book was, and read a little more.

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I was playing outside with one of my nephews (because I am an exceedingly lucky person, I have five of them). We were throwing poorly inflated balls back and forth, following the kind of arbitrary and unfair rules favored by young children.

In other words, he made the rules, and I followed them.

We threw our balls in the same direction, where they landed side by side in the wet grass. “You lost that time,” he said. “You say, “Darn!”

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Maybe it’s from mom. Or dad. Or grandpa or grandma…or their grandma and grandpa.

It probably goes back farther than that, because it’s so ingrained in most of us that we don’t even see it. To paraphrase David Foster Wallace, it’s like water to a fish — so ubiquitous we’re unaware of it.

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