My mom used to tell me, people like you who want so much more out of life, always end up mentally ill, disillusioned, and often dead by their own hand.
People like me = the kinds of people who as children say they want to change society. She knew all this from the time I was a toddler, one she claims was peculiar. At least, that’s what the UConn psychology department’s childcare (where my parents put me while they did their Master’s) also agreed on. I’d always end up running over to kids fighting over toys and stand between them with my hands held up, even if they were bigger than me, or cross my arms and pout until they reconciled. I showed unusual heightened sensitivity to circumstances, extreme empathy and mindfulness, truly shocking.
I’d grow up to be someone my mom always called, “pure hearted” “but foolish,” for my dreams were a curse, she said.
I would show my mom my books, saying how exciting it must be to be a writer, to be powerful, to be mighty! I want that too, I said, my eyes shining. Kids like that, they want to save the world. They want to have an impact. I knew I wanted to make an exceedingly positive difference in society before I even knew peerhood, knew intimacy, knew heartbreak, knew injustice.
And you will never be happy, my mom said in despair, because you aren’t prepared for the sacrifices you’ll have to make.
She’d just immigrated here from post-Cultural Revolution China. All she’d known of intellectuals then was they’d get absolutely trampled for having dreams, for speaking up, for wanting better. She was afraid of that for me.
As I got older and we kept having fights over how her trauma made her unable to see that I’m safe and happy in America, where dreaming is welcome (right?) she kept hearkening back to how my mental health was also unusually wobbly for “most normal people” and why can’t I just move back to Oregon and get a regular tech job and have a basic bitch life and not have to worry about money or impact, why can’t I just marry a nice boy who treats me well enough without wondering if I’m going to regret waking up to him every morning for the rest of my years, why can’t I numb out?
I used to think it was unvirtuous to be driven by fear or scarcity. I’d disdain how she was. But I also knew that deep down, I can’t change how I am. I can’t settle. I was never more suicidal than when I tried to be “the same” as other people. I felt misunderstood and unseen, even though I knew she was trying to protect me.
But now that I’m on the zenith of turning 30…. lmfao I used to hope to God, every day, that she’s not right, but also, man, it’s okay that I wish I could settle.
Yes, I’m satisfied by my life in a lot of ways. It’s also deep, maybe healthy cope. But at the end of the day, I ask the Lord in heaven above before I go to bed every night — why am I this way?
Why can’t I steel my stomach and power through things to where my life “Makes Sense” to others? Why can’t I talk about basic bitch stuff like the weather, smile just enough to make some guy next door fall for me, and then have an ordinary ass life? What was so wrong with that vision for me that I ended up this way?
The QUESTION of why can’t I settle haunts me all the time. Because, I’m not really classically “American” in that I find settling to be some sort of slur word. I find it kind of virtuous to need less. Which is how I’ve ended up being able to understand the position I’m in right now, sort of.
When yuppies say, “settle,” in the context of upper middle class suburban-leaning life, they don’t really mean, “get a blue collar job brosephine and live for your friends.” That’s ambitious, to fix my eyes on something “uncommon.”
“Settling” in popular culture sounds more like, “put up with your mediocre job where you earn enough to be stable, put up with your partner you have bad sex with,” not “put yourself in a slightly oppressive environment so you have to figure out how to move up.” Ironically, hitting the brakes on “idyllic normal routine I can sustain for a period of time” got me to my deep satisfaction arc, at the same time as it made me also grieve everything about me that makes me me (derogatory).
Unstoppable force — Immovable object =
Society telling you ask for more! Don’t be afraid to dream big! — Nofuckingbody has time or energy to be chasing this “more” that is promoted yet not inherently encouraged.
It’s hackneyed, but true. When you get older, you get jaded and cynical and disillusioned and tired. You say, fuck it, I need stability. I don’t need adventure. I don’t need passion. I don’t need true love or romance. I need to retire without fearing for my life. I need to eat without worrying about what the future entails.
The problem with not “feeling” like a failure, is it doesn’t immunize you from burnout, from feeling the Sisyphus-esque drain of wanting it all. The reason the proverbial song by Queen is so powerful is because it’s unrealistic to want it all, to where it becomes an anthem, a battle cry
I didn’t lie when I said I’m satisfied by life. But I also live in deep existential fear, of being different. Of being knocked down. Of not being accepted for my alternative lifestyle. Is this shedding the legacy of a myth that I’m still feeling doomed by?
Asking for more comes with an energetic cost. I’ve always wagered the opposite – does settling not come with a psychic cost?
The problem comes in when you can’t see where one cost ends and the other begins. When you now have a Sophie’s choice setup of despair.
What if I can’t have it all? What if I can’t stop trying anyway?
My existential turmoil over ‘settling,’ the battle that can never be won (or maybe it could if I philosophize a wee bit harder) has lost me relationships. I want not just more for myself but also more for the people around me. That means that if they’re unhappy in a relationship where neither of us wants to change, I’m willing to walk away even if they aren’t.
Some say it’s noble. But now I’m recognizing it means I have to flatten others, sadly, at the cost of relationships, in the name of honesty, in the name of living up to my values.
Now I ask myself - what if I did settle? What if I had settled? What if I didn’t just walk away from a conversation that I feared wouldn’t fix anything anyway and would just make the wound keep bleeding? What if I did let you break my heart one last time but knew I gave it my fair shot? Was it virtuous to keep my standards high? Should I have double downed on loving you instead?
Recently I wanted love so badly that I would’ve done anything to lie. I would’ve taken the crumbs. I would’ve talked until my tongue bled, typed until my fingers went numb, to figure out how to compromise. The temptation was to repress the truth.
Everyone commends me for “not settling” in my life. Everyone wants the best for me. However, even if I’m satisfied in my life, I do mourn that part of it has felt tragic, that much of it is unrelatable, and I wish I could not feel the things my mom feared I would feel.
I believe in compromises now, but sadly, maybe one day I’ll find a way to fully psyop myself into carrying them out.
One thing about me is as my spirit has broken a little bit, my actions have seemingly not shifted. I still fight as if there’s a better tomorrow, but I will say, my heart is in it a bit less. This is where old habits die hard though — I’m so used to trying anyway, giving fate a good fight, that maybe it’ll carry me over to the day I can have it all. When there is no longer the haunting of “what I could’ve had if I’d lowered my standards” tempting me to give back in to despair.
reading this and getting emotional because i relate so much.
reading this was like a gut punch