"We accept the love we think we deserve."
- Stephen Chbosky
I watched Perks of Being a Wallflower for about the tenth time the other night. I forget just how emotional that movie gets me (and everyone else who happens to be watching it)
It has "all the feels" as we like to say these days.
Sometimes I feel like girls have a cry quota that they have to reach each month. It almost feels as if we have to let out a certain amount of tears, or we might just explode into a blob of emotional goop. This movie is your movie if you need to get your cry on, ladies. (I hope that generalization doesn't offend anyone - maybe I am the only girl that just needs to let out a good round of tears every once and a while.)
The one line that always resonates with me is, "We accept the love we think we deserve."
That is one heck of a heavy line. Why do we allow people to make us feel belittled and small? Why do we let people talk down to us? Why do your friends come to you with the same sob story over and over, and why do you in turn bring them the same story time and time again?
This line pretty much sums up the answer to all of those questions and ties a pretty bow on top of the present.
"We accept the love we think we deserve."
What if we realized that we deserve more than settling? Are any one of us perfect? Absolutely not, but sometimes I think it's far too easy for us humans to get so hung up on all the "reasons" we don't "add up" that we forget that we are unique, beautiful and talented creatures who need love and deserve healthy relationships (friendship or romantic) that are built on mutual respect and trust.
We get so focussed on all the reasons we feel less than other people that we allow ourselves to be treated in ways that are outright illogical in the context of trying to build healthy relationships.
The more I contemplate the idea of feeling inadequate to someone else, the more illogical the thought pattern itself becomes to me.
When did we start ranking people? When did the phrase, "{He/She} is out of my league" become a thing?
Sometimes it feels like we are living inside a high school lunchroom that has an imaginary seating chart, ranking people's cool factor. I think most of us would admit to feeling a little pompous at the thought of verbally saying, "Oh, I am so out of ___________'s league."
So, why do we allow others to make us feel less and accept that as tolerable behavior in the context of a healthy relationship?
You are worth more than that. I am not saying that you should never settle for being treated like less than royalty, but I am saying that you should not settle to be in relationship with others who use/abuse/misuse etc., your talents and abilities. And you should never settle into a relationship where you are the only one putting in effort to sustain the relationship.
You very well may accept the love that you deserve, but this statement can either be a declaration of excitement and freedom or a sad line showing the desperation of a toxic relationship pattern.