Why do we settle for less than we clearly deserve?
This is a question that has been bothering me for quite a while now. It particularly stuck with me after my conversation with a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in a long time. I’ve always known her as a person who fought for love. A person who couldn’t imagine her life without pure, all-consuming love.
She looked for it her entire life. In the process, she got hurt too many times, but surprisingly, she never lost faith. Never ever did she gave up on love. She was always determined to find the real thing, no matter the cost…
Until one day, she called me and told me that she’s getting married. To a man that she just met a few months ago. A man who she didn’t love the way she loves. A man who she didn’t choose with her heart. A man who was clear that isn’t good for her…
The truth is, she knows it all. She knows all of this and yet, she’s okay with it. She is perfectly aware that she’s settling for a relationship that she’s not really happy with. She’s perfectly aware that she’s saying yes to something she never imagined she would accept. But she’s still doing it. She is ready to marry the guy and spent her life with him.
And she’s not the only one. I know a lot of people that have done the exact same thing.
So, my question is… Why do we do that?
Why do we keep accepting things that are bad for us? Better yet, why do we keep ending up in bad relationships?
People say, in life, we only accept the things that we think we deserve. And I guess they are right. Thinking about it, I’ve realized that everything I’ve been through in life, both the good and the bad experiences, was given to me in an exactly perfect moment in my life.
Everything we experience in life is a direct consequence of our choices. Nothing more. Nothing less. Even our subconscious ones. You see, we don’t choose bad relationships and bad experiences on purpose. We don’t make those mistakes because we enjoy them. We don’t go through hardships because we like it. We simply attract who and what we are in the moment. When we are insecure, we attract people who are not sure about us. When we’re overly critical towards ourselves, we attract people who want to change us. When we think low of us, we attract people who only treat us like an option. And when we are happy with ourselves, when we accept ourselves the way we are, we attract just the right kind of people. The ones who fall in love with the real version of us. With every part of both our soul and body.
So, I guess… We are in it alone. It all depends on us. It all depends on how we see ourselves. How we treat ourselves. Much importantly, how much we love ourselves.
That is the real reason why we sometimes end up in bad relationships. It is a choice that we all make on our own.
