accept what we deserve

Today we were quarantined inside the house. Brandon has pink eye (and an ear infection, and four erupting teeth). The poor baby has had better days. We took it easy and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In it, Paul Rudd tells his student, “we accept the love we think we deserve.” (I don’t know why it is that Paul Rudd is the only actor whose lines ever make it onto my blog). In the movie, the main character struggles watching everyone around him in a relationship where one person is getting hurt and his teacher explains to him why it is people stay in those relationships.

I thought it was poetic. I said it to myself over and over again throughout the movie so I wouldn’t forget it. And I thought about the people I know who are in relationships where they are punished for being themselves. I have thought of them many times. I have wondered who they would be if they were with someone else. At work, the owner recently made a management change which directly effected me. He told me he was doing it because he has noticed that certain people will bloom when given more freedom.

There are people who think they are worthless, or stupid or slutty. So they become those things. They let what people define them as define them, rather than rebutting it. They wallow in the life that has happened to them thus far, rather than creating a better life despite all of the bad. Potential success stories become casualties of self-fulfilling prophecies.
 
There is a quote I that I kept on my closet in college: If someone says something unkind about you, you must live so that no one will believe it.  People will say unkind things about you. You can not prevent that. But you don’t have to believe it. And if you rebut them, neither will anybody else.

People are willing to settle for less than what is best suited for them. What we deserve is what is best for us. What we accept isn’t always.  

I didn’t mean for this to sound preachy. I’m not perfect, I have a million flaws I need to work on. There are many things people have said about me that I haven’t rebutted yet. I am a work in progress. But damn those people who try to make me think I deserve less than I do because of it. I don’t. I deserve what’s best for me. And nothing less will last too long. This is why I left my last job. This is why I have cut off friendships that brought me down. This is why I would have never married anyone before Steve. I deserve what’s best for me. Sometimes, I don’t have it yet. That is when it’s time to edit and go in search of it.