Do We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve?

Lately, I’ve spent a great deal of time reading and responding to emails and am, as always, so grateful to hear from everyone. I love the insight I’ve received from so many.

During an email exchange a short time ago, Kelly P. from Dothan, Alabama, shared a quote with me that resonated in an interesting way. In response to a comment I made about love not always turning out how we’d hoped or expected, she wrote: “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Those words stuck in my head and have been rolling around ever since.

The quote itself comes from the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower written by Stephen Chbosky which was published in 1999 and later adapted into a movie in 2012. I enjoyed both the book and the movie very much.

But it’s those words in particular that I’ve been repeating to myself over and over, maybe because they bring me back to seasons in my own life when I was less than happy. But something feels off when I replay the reel of those days in my mind along with those words.

Do we accept the love we think we deserve?

I believe everyone deserves to love and be loved freely and unconditionally, without guilt, agenda, or judgment. And I think most people believe that, too.

This is something I’ve expressed before. Recently, someone asked me what I mean when I say without guilt, agenda, or judgment. I believe true love is selfless. I believe when you love someone, you’re concerned with their happiness and well-being. You’re focused on what you’re giving more than what you’re receiving. And when you find another who feels the same way, when you feel connected, and that love is reciprocated, it is the kind of love that fills you up and feeds your soul.

On the other hand, I believe when love is driven by a need to satisfy our own wishes, needs, desires, and ideas of life and love then that is not selfless love. That is self-love. It’s love bestowed upon another with the intention of fulfilling an agenda, whether conscious or subconscious. We all have an idea in our mind of what we would like our life to look like, and, sometimes, we look for someone to help us complete that picture.

I think there’s a big difference between love that is selfless and love that is driven by self-love, and I think most of us fall somewhere in between. That doesn’t mean I think every person in a relationship is settling for less than the kind of selfless love we all deserve. I think true love brings peace and happiness, and we all know those couples whom, when we’re around them, we feel that sense of peace.

In the same vein, I think we all know some who seem just the opposite, and I have been there myself. I struggled for years to make the best of a situation, knowing it wasn’t where I should be.

So when we do find ourselves in that place, when we look around and find the love and life we’ve committed ourselves to doesn’t fill us up and feed our soul, why do we stay?

Why do we stay when someone we love doesn’t return our love? Why do we stay when we find ourselves in a place where we are simply “okay” or barely hanging on to happiness? Why do we remain where there is no connection, passion, or affection, and all we feel is emptiness? Why do we choose to stay with someone who treats us badly?

Do we accept it because we think it’s all we deserve?

Or, rather, do we settle for what we’re given knowing, all the while, that we deserve more?

I think it’s the latter.

I think, for most of us, when we find ourselves somewhere we aren’t meant to be, we feel it, but we push the feeling away. Over and over. We make excuses to ourselves and to others, and we find reasons to stay even when we know we shouldn’t.

I’m not referring to people who are in need of intervention, whose attempt to leave their situation would put them in danger. That is an entirely different circumstance. I’m referring to those of us who find ourselves slowly slipping into ambivalence.

Because there is a danger in that as well, isn’t there?

When I was very young, we lived in a great house with the perfect great big backyard. My three older sisters and I wore ourselves out running around that yard. We would sit outside and eat at the picnic table during the summertime, and, in the winter, we would roll around great big boulders of snow and build great big Frosty the Snowmen. At the back of the yard was a steep embankment, and we would climb up the path to get to the top where, on the other side of the trees, there were railroad tracks. I remember asking my mom once when I was much older, and we no longer lived in that house, why there were tracks up there, but there was no train. My mom said the train came through several times a week. It was a long cargo train that took several minutes to roll by. We lived in that house for years from the time I was eight months old, and I don’t remember ever hearing that train. Not because it wasn’t there. And not because it wasn’t loud. It was, in fact, very loud. But at some point, after listening to that train over and over, I became so used to it that I didn’t hear it anymore.

I think, for some of us, we quiet the loud, unhappy voice inside our head until we don’t hear it. It’s there, but we stop listening. We push it away until it becomes a feeling we feel but don’t acknowledge. And over time, that feeling becomes a part of us.

The sad part, I think, is when we silence that part of our soul that is speaking to us, and stay in a life or a love that doesn’t fulfill us, it drains us slowly. And we change.

So, why do we settle?

I wish I knew the answer. It would have saved me a considerable amount of heartache years ago.

But whether it is an unwillingness to give up the things we have, the possessions we’ve acquired, the comfort of our home, financial security, a way of life we’re used to, or the hope we hang on to, I think what it really comes down to is fear.

It’s easier to accept and deal with what’s in front of us than to chance the unknown. Even a bad situation is, at least, familiar.

Most of us are hard-wired to avoid pain and conflict. So we choose what we tell ourselves is the least painful course. But why, I wonder, do we always assume the worst? Instead of convincing ourselves that it’s too hard to change and things can’t possibly improve, why do we not, instead, tell ourselves things can and will be better?

What if it’s as easy as changing our perspective?

What if we were able to recognize the only thing preventing us from creating the life we truly desire is our own inability to see it and believe it? What if we knew, with absolute certainty, that, when we make the choice to step out of fear and into faith, amazing things can and will happen? That things will not only be better, they will be so much better, and we will be happier, hopeful, and peaceful?

How many of us would change where we are right now?

It took many years for me to understand the power in choosing faith over fear. I believe fear blocks us from receiving everything we truly desire. It is a powerful motivator and a considerable opponent. But fear is not insurmountable. Fear is, after all, self-perpetuated. Maybe, more than anything, what we need to do is learn to get out of our own way.

The Greatest Kid On The Planet has it right. He believes if you can see it, you can be it. And the answer to every question is yes. I wish I could bottle that. I would give it to my younger self.

And I wish I could tell my younger self how drastically life can change when we choose to step out of fear. It isn’t easy, but change isn’t what we should be afraid of. There isn’t anything more painful than a life that leaves us feeling empty and alone. Living that way, with the certainty nothing is going to change, is what we should fear.

I don’t believe we accept the love we think we deserve. I think we settle, even when we know we’re somewhere we aren’t meant to be. Even when we’re sure it’s not where we belong. I think we tell ourselves we should be happy with what we have, and we silence the voice in our head telling us there is something more. Because having someone and something, even if it doesn’t make us truly happy, even if it isn’t what we see for ourselves, is better than having nothing at all. Isn’t it?

Is it?

M.C. Greene

Thank you, Kelly P., for your valuable words of wisdom. You have incredible strength.

(This lovely photo was taken by Todd Trapani)

P.S. Are We Selfless Or Selfish When It Comes To Love?