This is the Sound of Settling

I’ve never been good at doing things I hated to do.

I think it stems from a childhood of being pretty spoiled as a result of being an only child. When I was a child, my parents had tried to get me to do a lot of things I didn’t like, such as piano lessons. The only thing they never relented on was my Chinese, which I’m grateful for now. For everything else, if I protested or resisted, they simply told me I didn’t have to do it.

As a result, though, it seems that I am really bad at just putting my head down and plowing through things I dislike. I’ve always managed to get by on just the bare minimum. In P.E., I walked a 30-minute mile and just tried to look busy by standing around in the outfield or just running up and down the bball court instead of actually playing the sport. I was interested in learning, not sports. But I had to take PE so I scraped by with the least amount of efforts to get credit.

Side story: I once had a conversation with someone who told me, “You were one of those girls in PE! I hated those girls! I always wanted to win.” To which I replied, “Well, I always wanted to not play. So either way, it isn’t fair.”

I bet there are a lot of people who don’t settle or put up with things they dislike. I bet it can swing either way – they can be really successful because they go straight for what they want and never settle for less… or they can never succeed because they aren’t willing to dig through the dirt to find a diamond. What about the people who flounder around in the middle, like me? Some say you gotta do what you gotta do. Some people tell you that sometimes life forces tough choices and you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to survive. Some people say to never settle, even if you’re hurting.

Did you know that after 10 Things I Hate About You, Heath Ledger was offered many more teen romance roles? He turned them all down because he didn’t want to get type-casted in those roles his entire career, instead living on ramen and cereal while waiting for other opportunities.

Being this type of person means that at some point, you have to drawn a line between being confident and being stubborn. When do you know that you’re not getting what you want because it’s not fair or because of your ego? Are you fighting to fight or fighting to win, just because you hate being wrong and hate letting other people be right? Or, vice versa, are you trying so hard not to be stubborn and egotistic that you are letting people walk all over you?

Are you selling yourself short by settling or hurting future opportunities when you don't?

P.S. 5 points for naming the band in the post title.