These past couple of weeks I’ve been having to make decisions and have conversations which are making me realize that I’m going to or have been settling. Settling for an environment I don’t want to live in, for relationships I don’t want to be in, for friendships I’m forcing, basically for a way of life that I hate.
I don’t want to urge you guys to walk away when shit isn’t going the way you want it to go, but I do want you to always keep what you want and what you need in mind when you have to make compromises. Your well being and your needs should always come first. There was this thing I saw on twitter about one of the hardest truths to accept and it was the idea that nobody owes you anything, they don’t owe you their love, their sympathy, or their understanding. And as hard as that might hurt you should just think of it as yourself or as somebody you care about, would you ever tell them to settle or force something they clearly don’t want? Yeah, I thought so too.
Now, knowing that nobody owes us shit and accepting it are two different things. Being able to accept it, to learn how to walk away and how to let go, this is the hard part. The reason being that we think that what deserve will stay in the package we first got it in, when that’s not necessarily true. We sometimes have to let go of something that seemed good to get something better, as hard and as fucked up as that may sound. The funny thing is that one will know the difference between giving up (not fighting enough, abandoning) and letting go with the knowledge that this is not for me or no longer for me.
The reason why I say that sometimes things are no longer for us is because we evolve as we go through life, we change and we basically morph into somebody new, shedding some old parts and keeping the crucial parts of us, the ones making us unique. If somebody or something was in your life for a long time this does not mean that they will be there forever, it simply means that they were good for you and you were good for them for a long time, and it will continue to feel right until it doesn’t. It hurts because we live life in the future, we don’t live it in the present meaning that we think what we have now is what we will have then, when that’s not written, said or promised. People die, they change and they move on (including you). So it’s important to have the maturity and the wisdom to know when something no longer belongs to us but also when we don’t belong to a place or with a person anymore.
When I experienced that, I was friends with this person for a couple of years and I always saw myself being their friend until both of us started to change. I can’t speak for my old friend but on my side I was starting to notice that this person didn’t reflect the kind of friend I wanted to have and surround myself with. At first I tried to settle, make concessions and understand their requests but I was SO miserable and although I miss them dearly, I am now much more conscious about who I let in my personal circle and that makes a difference.
So if it’s hard for you to answer the question “why would you settle?” try figuring out if you would like somebody to hang out with you, when they truly don’t want to? So why would you do it to somebody else? See that’s the thing, we limit ourselves and oftentimes delay the blessings that await us because we aren’t learning to let go, we aren’t learning to throw something away when it’s rotten or when we outgrow it or it outgrows us.
You deserve the best so give yourself the best. If this means applying for a job in another state or country, breaking up that friendship, demanding more from your partner, whatever it is, ask for it, do it. Everything will follow accordingly.
Thanks for reading!
Kira P.
Kira Paulemon 