To Settle, or Not to Settle?
What does it mean, and how does it feel, to settle for something less than perfect?
I was listening to a TEDx talk earlier this week. It’s a well-structured and enticing talk, garnished with a click-bait title and captivating introductory story, and it makes many a great point about how we hold ourselves “captive” — living in a web of lies that society strings together for us and that we indubitably follow out of the fear that our true happiness won’t be acceptable to others.
For one thing, it’s worth considering how this idea is not only so common an experience among humans, but how prominently discussed it is now, in this day and age of self-help, consciousness, and the like.
It’s a concept that for me, personally, was life-changing when I really took the time to consider it, and that ultimately lead me to where I am now in my life and career — but it also perhaps sounds a bit trite every time I hear of it (be it in this TED talk, or in a podcast, a book, my own writing…). But I digress.
The real reason I bring up this talk is that it got me thinking about the related but separate idea of “not settling.”
Upon first thought, this may also present as a cliché, but hear me out.
Where perfectionism has been made the modern-day devil on your shoulder, and the belief that we should never settle for less than what we desire out of life on the other, where does that leave us?
If you’re like me, it leaves you somewhere in the middle — constantly butting up against your egoic desire to put your own potential on a pedestal and to be a nobody. Charming, no?
But I’d like to reframe this, if I may, for myself if for no one else taking the time to read this (I love you!).
Just as I believe there is a dual nature of positive and negative, good and bad, in all things, I believe there can be a coexistence of this belief in never settling and actively resisting perfectionism. They exist on a scale, and which end you are closer to can be determined with this question:
What does it mean, and how does it feel, to settle for something less than perfect?
Does it mean letting yourself, or others, down? Or does it mean giving yourself a break?
Does it mean self-abandonment? Or self-acceptance and love?
Does it feel discouraging? or empowering?
Does it feel like pressure? or relief?
Whichever end of the scale you find yourself, one is not “better” than the other. In fact, you could say this is an exercise in challenging that very belief of your worth and “rightness” being tied to some external criteria.
I’m also not saying that you win at life if you find yourself smack dab in the middle, because I can probably guarantee you that you won’t be there for long. We all have things that we don’t mind “settling” for, just as we all have things where we feel the constant need for improvement. But I think being aware of how we are walking on this line can keep our dreams and our realities peacefully in check.
