We look at people who are living outside the norm, maybe its a young man dating a lot of women, or a woman choosing to focus on her career, or someone travelling the world instead of going to school, and we say “When they settle down, they will get married, or have a baby, or get a real job”. Why on earth would we ever choose to settle down, why don’t we settle up? Just the phrase has a negative meaning if you really think into it. Its saying to lower your expectations and become average. It implies that once you “settle down” you will have to give up what you had before. What if that is a crock of shit? What if you decided instead to settle up, to make the next phase of your life even more magnificent than yesterday?
I think too many people think that life has to be ordinary. That you lose the passion after a long time doing one thing, or being with one person. People talk about their glory days, or when I was younger, or before I had kids like it was the best of their lives. I know that the best is yet to come. I know that expecting today and however many tomorrows I am fortunate enough to have on this earth will be even more extraordinary than today. How do I know that? Because I expect it. I live as if it were true. I dream and stretch my imagination and know that no matter how old I am there is still so much I don’t know. I will never settle down. I am committed to always growing and stretching higher so I can fully experience all that this life has to offer me, and bringing as many people along with me as I can.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or how stuck you may feel, all it takes is a dream, a vision and a belief in your potential to continue to grow (and maybe a helping hand to give you a little pull!). I continue to take that hand when it presents itself to me. When I need a reminder of how great life is all I need to do is reach out and there it is, most of the time my amazing husband’s, but sometimes its the invisible hand of kindness with a stranger or someone on my team.
“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living” Nelson Mandela