The Art of Not Settling
Is settling your second nature? Is it a way of life, a constant reiteration in your daily interaction as you go about in the world?
Do you settle for second-best? Or worse still, do you settle for third-best? Or even worse, for third-best? Four-best, five-best? Now you can see what I’m getting at. If you’re not getting the first best out of life, it’s simply not the best. There is no such thing as second-best.
There is only the best, and it belongs to the first spot. Anywhere else simply isn’t the best.
It’s just… better. But better means settling.
And if you settle, you’ll never get the best life has to offer you.
Sure, you can tell yourself. This relationship is “better” than the previous relationships I had. This job is “better” than the previous jobs I held down. This home is “better” than the previous houses I’ve lived in.
But if you go really deep into yourself, you would have realized what you’ve done to yourself. You’ve essentially said to the world and yourself,
“I’m not the best, therefore I don’t deserve the best.”
And in return, life responds and gives you just a bit better. It’s certainly “better” than getting it really “bad”, isn’t it? In the back of your mind, you can hear yourself saying, “It’s not so bad…”
This is not such a bad job…
This marriage is not so bad…
This life is not so bad after all…
Saying that to yourself makes you feel slightly “better”, so after your “not-so-bad” job you go for a “not-so-bad” meal, go home and watch a “not-so-bad” show, shower and have a “not-so-bad” sleep, you wake up from a “not-so-bad” dream, brush your teeth, go to work in a “not-so-bad” commute, interact and deal with “not-so-bad” customers… and repeat your “not-so-bad” life on repeat all over again.
… Again and again and again.
Just like the hamster who thinks he is running off to somewhere great into the far distance but no matter how fast and furious he is capable of running, guess where he still ends up on the day of his run?
You guessed it.
At the very exact spot, he first started running.
Back to ground zero. Back in one full circle. Back where he started.
Do you feel like that sometimes? Most of the time? Almost all the time? All the time?
You’ve settled.
Plain and simple.
Settling will never get you to where you want to be, it only gets you to where you don’t want to be. Always step one. While everyone else has run far, far away into the distance, while some people are nearing or have already gone past the finishing line to collect their medals and/or trophies, you’re still at the starting line.
Stumbling and stuck at the starting line.
Restarting several times, countless times, simply because somewhere along the line, or actually, right from the very start, you’ve settled.
Settling means that you will always be on the first step of the way no matter how many steps you’ve taken. The first chapter of the book no matter how many chapters you’ve read. First of all things.
One step at a time? Sure, but are you running on a treadmill or the actual path? The treadmill-way ensures that you’ll stay in the same spot, however hard you run.
Is your career, relationships, finance, and health like a treadmill approach or otherwise?
Welcome to the art of settling.
But this is not an art you want to be great at.
Change your course, take up the art of not settling instead.
How?
By NOT settling.
Never settle. Ever.
Be free and wild,
Li Ting
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