Settling. I have been thinking about what it means to settle. You always hear that…Don’t settle. Like don’t settle in your career, don’t settle for mediocre work, don’t settle in love, don’t settle for someone who isn’t good enough for you. I always struggle with that last part, mostly because I have a holy filter.
It’s like I’m panning for gold but there are holes in my screen…. Hmmm.. maybe thats less holy filter …..more Hole-y filter? This a fascinating analogy, given what I am about to say in an upcoming sentence. But as for my filter…here is what I mean… In my life….I let just about anything thru. I love everyone. I do. I can overlook just about any flaw and hug onto any capability. Wait..that sounds
Jesus-y…maybe it is a Holy filter….letting thru the tired, the poor and asthmatic, the wretched refuse, the homeless and tempest-tost…wait no that’s the statue of liberty… I have statue of liberty filter. Man I am great.
So knowing that I seem to like me some homeless men, and tardy* men, and one eyed men and men that need a few bucks for gas, well when it comes to boys….I tend to settle. So how do I stop doing that…I look at what settling means…and then I think of lemonade.
Not because it’s what you make from the stuff life throws at you..but because it sometimes comes in the form of a powder that you mix with water. I think about dumping a little plastic tub of Crystal Lighttm into a vat of water, swishing it around with a spoon till it dissolves. It is alive that lemonade. Forgive the fact that this is an extremely chemical somewhat-chalky-bad -aftertaste- example….but that lemonade is a perfect solution. Until it sits. It sits still. The sediment just sinks to the bottom. That’s what it means to settle. I think you can only sink to the bottom if you are not moving around enough. And then I look in the mirror..and I think..Eureka! Of course I am settling. I need to shake things up. In every way. This may be common knowledge what settle meant…but it seriously just occurred to me all… the possibilities.
I have drawn the conclusion that realizing you are settling can be very unsettling… BUT when you finally settle the unsettling settling feeling you can settle down and realize you don’t need to settle down, you just need to stop settling.
* : By tardy I actually mean late… or ….take it as you will.
**: The conclusion that I drew was decidedly cheesy and I almost titled this post Settle Corn….which then made me think I should title it Settle Nuances, Settling on the Dock of the Bay or Early Settlers of the Louisiana Purchase. Then I thought…no, no I should go to bed.
