Settling

I was struck by a poignant quote that I had to share with you: We accept the love we think we deserve.

Let that sink in a minute.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

I learned that Stephen Chbosky penned this quote. Name meant nothing to me either. But further research told me that he is the screenwriter for the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower and that the quote was used in the script of the movie.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

It’s so easy for me to see it in others yet so difficult to identify in myself.

We accept less than what we deserve because we convince ourselves that we deserve no more.

I guess it could go the other way, too. We could reject love that’s not safe, not sound, not edifying because we know we deserve more. Deserve better. But that’s not really the problem, is it?

What has life thrown at us? Who has convinced us that this is as good as it gets? Why do we settle in life or in love? And how does this affect our quest toward a well-balanced life? There may be others, but I have narrowed it down to three reasons:

1)      Self-esteem – whether high or low, our self-esteem is the voice that tells us what type of life or love we deserve as well as how much we should put up with.

2)      Comfort – sound like a good thing, right? But what happens if we get so comfortable in our relationships that we don’t work at them? Even good relationships…will they be around tomorrow if we neglect them today? When we’re comfortable, we stop growing. When we stop growing, we start dying.

3)      Fear – Are we afraid of failure? Are we afraid of success? Are we afraid of what would happen if we challenged the life or love we have accepted up until now?

So what’s the antidote? Is there a way out of this hole? How do we overcome this unhealthy settling?
Here’s my four-pronged approach. One by itself is not enough. One taken out of order will make no sense. Step by step, though, and we can rejoice instead of sigh.

Okay, here goes:

1)      Awareness – first we have to be aware there is a problem. Are we happy? Do we feel fulfilled? Content? Challenged? Motivated? Inspired? If not, something needs to change.

2)      Knowledge – in the past, we may have ducked out at this point. We may have lamented over our problems and trudged on. Now it’s different. Now we’ll wrap ourselves in knowledge. We’ll learn how a healthy relationship looks. We’ll consider what we really want out of life. We’ll research the steps to both attaining and sustaining the vitality we’ve missed up until now.

3)      Implementation – Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? But it must happen often enough that scripture references our unwillingness to implement. James 1:22-24 (NIV) reads:

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

4)      Evaluation – how did it go? Did you achieve what you had hoped? If not, what went wrong? The answer is not that you just didn’t deserve better. Keep looking. Keep trying. Keep asking. Keep surrounding yourself with healthy people and a healthy lifestyle until you strike the success you’re longing for.

You deserve no less.

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.