The Major Decision

Are we really happy and contented with our lives?

Honestly, how many people can proudly and truthfully claim that they are perfectly contented with their lives and satiated or even delighted with everything that they have and endured in their lives?

Do we strive and fight for what we want? Or do we settle?

I think there's a fine line between compromise, sacrifice and just plain settling.

Do we settle? Do we settle for second best or the next alternative instead of striving for what we really want in our life?

Unknowingly, most of us probably choose to settle. It's not narcissism nor are we putting ourselves on a pedestal by claiming that we deserve the best there is cause deep down we know what's the best we deserve. We know whether we deserve more out of our lives or not. We know whether we should settle or strive for more.

But sometimes, despite knowing that we deserve better, we choose to settle cause it's an easier way out. It's so much easier to just settle for what we have, unsatisfied as we are, than to fight and make that change in our lives.

We don't want to change because we're afraid of the consequences and we secretly hope that the change comes to us without us making any ammendments whatsoever. We feed off hope, thinking that maybe our neighbours will stop littering rubbish around our compounds without us telling them so, that a certain colleague of ours will stop bossing or picking on us without us taking a stand against them, that our parents will realise the hurt they're putting us through by fighting and bad-mouthing each other without us voicing it out, in risks of damaging relationships.

Sometimes, things just aren't as they seem to be. People aren't always who you think they are. People change and some show their true colours later on. We feel the weight of it when we realise it's causing a distance, driving us further apart from them without them realising it. Maybe it's the change or maybe you've never really opened your eyes and realised that's how they truly are.

But we make excuses for their changes or derive possibilities or reasons why they are the way they are when we realise that their actually different. We tell ourselves that it'll revert back to normal or that it'll be different cause we're afraid of confrontation. We're afraid to make that change, afraid to stand up and fight for it. We settle cause we're afraid that if we stand up, if we carry out that confrontation, things will be worse off or in some cases, things may never be as it was before that dreaded change.

We're afraid of the consequences amounting from the changes we make. We're afraid that just that mere confrontation, comprising of a few words or sentences, will cause more damage than we would have ever imagined. Most of all, we're afraid that those damages may be irreversible.

We vow to ourselves that someday, soon, we'll make those changes, confront those things hurting us but we somehow never find the courage to. It takes so much courage and the strength required if said damages were to be severe and irreverisble is unimaginable. We need them not only to deal and adapt to it but to pull ourselves up from the mess and to move on.

Having said all that, it's ironic how such a simple thing requires much contemplation and courage to execute.

So, do we make a change or settle?




Listening to : Ride by Carey Brothers