Refusing to settle is not always the best choice

​I have heard this declaration a lot lately: "I will never settle."

It's built on the idea that an individual has worth and desires and to settle for anything less than something that matches that worth and desire is to be cheating oneself of life.

I get it. But here's the problem. Or maybe the big question?

How does one actually know when they have found this match in life that is the answer to 'not settling?'

I certainly hear this philosophy a lot when it comes to romantic relationships, this idea of not settling. But I also hear it in job searches and house searches. I hear it when it comes to one settling on pursuing meaningful activities or hobbies or projects in life. I hear it a lot, this idea that I will not invest my time, energy, and commitment to 'this' if I'm not completely sure this is the right 'this'.

When I hear people talk about 'not settling', it's usually as they are finding things in whatever they are tempted to settle for that just aren't quite right. Which really comes from some sort of belief that somewhere out there is something that will be a little more exactly right.

But does that exist? A partner or house or pursuit that is exactly right? Does one ever get to a point where what they have doesn't leave them with some level of wondering if there is something a little more exactly right out there?

I do think it's possible. I believe one can, actually, get to that point. But don't they get there by settling?

Robert Goodin says, "You must settle, in a relatively enduring way, upon something that will be the object of your striving, in order for that striving to count as striving."

Gooding suggests that living life to its fullest actually requires settling. He suggests that we can refuse to make a situation our ideal situation by continually pursuing a different sort of less-than-ideal situation.

I spend two hours every morning reading and writing. For a long time that was very difficult to do. Not because of the time but because of all the other things I always knew I could be doing with that time.

I used to run and workout a lot in the mornings. I used to use that quiet time to get a head start on that day's work. Sometimes I'd use that time to sneak in a little extra sleep. So, for the longest time, writing in the mornings was less than ideal because I always wondered if I could be doing something with that time a little more ideal.

For the longest time, committing so much to writing felt like I was being cheated out of other areas in life.

Well, here's the reality. We are going to live our lives cheated by other areas of life as long as we think about the areas of life we might be missing out on. We will always suffer from a fear of missing out (FOMO) until we discover what Oliver Burkeman calls, the joy of missing out (JOMO).

The joy of missing out comes when we settle for something in life and pour our all into it. The joy comes from knowing I am choosing to miss out on everything else because 'this' thing is so worth my time investing in. It's the knowing that I am refusing other choices that makes this choice more meaningful.

Joy comes when we stop refusing to settle and make the choice to do just that.

Settle.

We live in a world with more options than ever. And we can begin to live in a fantasy world, a dream world of sorts, that every option is an option for me.

Well, that is simply not true. And we can get to a point in life when we realize we've waited our whole lives for the dream situation instead of settling for the situation that could have best made our dreams come alive.

We can spend our whole lives looking for the ideal situation when the ideal situation was there for the choosing all along.

I believe there is merit in refusing to settle. But in the end, a content and meaningful life comes when we do exactly that.

We settle.