Obviously, perfect is pretty hard to come by. So in any aspect of your life - friends jobs whatever - you have to accept some negatives. Sometimes these negatives aren't so bad, and these are just the bullshit things we have to put up with in order to have a semi-decent life. Other times they are flat out, deal-breaker awful. If these things are in your life, you're settling. Since my upcoming birthday has clearly had me doing a lot of thinking, I've been spending a lot of time contemplating the line between bullshit and settling.
If you're dating someone who has a habit of stealing blankets in the middle of the night, that's silly bullshit.
If you're dating someone who constantly lies to you, you're settling.
If you work at a job where the dress code isn't as casual as you'd like, that's bullshit.
If you work at a job where your boss berates you for no reason, that's settling.
The distinction, though, isn't always that clear. And even if it is, sometimes you can't walk away from something just because you know you're settling and could in theory do better.
As ridiculous as it sounds, this is something that keeps me up at night (that, along with fantasizing about getting a puppy or wondering how someone can possibly be smart enough to write a show as nuanced as Breaking Bad). I wonder about every aspect of my life and whether I should be striving for something better. All the articles and blog posts I've read about turning 30 (my Facebook feed has been rife with them all year) talk about how your 30s are a great time in your life because you know what you want and demand it. No more dating assholes! No more stupid jobs where all you do is fetch coffee! No more toxic friendships! AKA, no more settling.
The people who write these things are either looking at their 30s with rose-colored glasses or just have their shit way more together than I do. Because they just make it seem so obvious, like it's a really clear distinction between something being worth your time or not. And it doesn't matter if you're 30 or 22 or 100, it's going to be a constant battle between how you allot your time, energy, money and love to these things.
Most of the people I know hate their jobs, at least occasionally. And sometimes it's hard to determine whether, on the days you hate your job, if it's just a little bump on the way to an awesome career or a soul-crushingly bad match that will cause you to hate not just your job, but your life. It's even harder with interpersonal relationships. Do I love each and every one of my friends 100% of the time? Of course not. But there's a difference between someone who has a tendency to run 10 minutes late to everything and someone who talks shit about you behind your back. It's even harder with romantic relationships because people can get so desperate for those that they'll settle for anyone, no matter how unworthy, over having no one at all.
I sort of go back and forth between where I think I fall on the bullshit-settling spectrum. I don't think I have any supremely caustic components to my life, but I'm sure there are some where I could hold myself to some higher standards. As I approach 30 (and I promise, this is the last time I'm going to write an introspective blog post that has to do with this birthday), I'm going to try and figure out how I can improve, making sure my life is only full of blanket stealers, and not liars.
After writing this blog post, I'm also going to try and get this song out of my head.
1 comment:
I'm both glad and sad (for all of us) that I'm not alone in thinking about such things, especially at night. :)
Post a Comment
What's on your mind?