Rise Above, don't Settle for
Less than You Deserve
Christopher, Byram, opinion editor
In life, there are two
options: settle or rise above.
The
road of life is an arduous trial with no promises, and few happy endings.
Problems that are set on a person act as a fork in the proverbial road of
life, and a person can choose to rise above misfortune, or settle with it.
At
this age, few things seem to go wrong. Most young adults seem to maintain
that teenage/adolescent attitude of indestructibility, even though the
reality of things is far from the truth. Misfortune will happen to us all,
although the circumstances and severity of change will, of course, vary.
That
misfortune could come in a form as impacting as an unplanned pregnancy at an
inopportune time, or something a little less severe, such as a sudden cut in
available funds. Students and spoiled teens dependent upon their parents for
all their needs would see that as a devastating agent of change in their
accustomed lifestyle and an unplanned pregnancy at a pivotal point in life
could be quite a slap in the face. These are only a couple of examples of
potentially upsetting situations, but life has a wonderful way of varying
its attack. The solutions, however, stay the same: settle or rise above.
A
person should never feel so limited by his or her situation that her or she
should be forced to settle for any extended period of time. There is always
room for improvement, even if that improvement isn’t necessarily monumental
or immediately evident. How often does a situation come along that proves
itself to be so completely restricting and suffocating that absolutely
nothing can be done? Rare are those, and not even one example comes to mind,
which may further illustrate my point. There are always options. Even in the
most hopeless situations, there are always options. Even if no options are
clearly evident, the world will provide.
To
settle is to give up on some level, and a person should always strive to
make the most out of life. Settling in love, settling in employment,
education –anything- is giving up and sacrificing dreams and ambitions due
to 1,000 inexcusable possibilities. When a person loses sight of his or her
dreams –of what a person wants out of life, and what a person wants to
accomplish with the time s/he has been given- that person becomes empty and
useless to the world.
To
settle is to attempt to excuse a failure. If a person fails, that is one
thing, but if a person fails and attempts to cover that failure by acting in
a way that only serves to create an ever-growing quagmire of bad choices and
mistakes, then what growth can be expected? One mistake leads to others, and
misery loves company. Bad choices have a tendency to grow into a sinking
wasteland of muck and ugly.
To
settle is the worst example of victimless sin. Life is not about settling.
(Who really knows what it’s about?) Life may not be about making the most
money or acquiring the most goods, but it isn’t about giving up. It isn’t
about allowing the forces that operate against you to win out. It may not be
about breaking down others in order to get ahead, but there is enough land,
love and happiness to accommodate everyone.
Life
is a struggle, and it’s a difficult thing. We live in a world where the
weakest suffer most, and our capitalistic society only heightens the risks.
Raising the stakes sends many running for the hills, hoping to find
something in all the nothing that they’re making for themselves.
I
don’t condone such extreme competition, but I don’t think it’s right for a
person to simply give up on him or herself, even if everyone else has. If
anything, that is all the more reason to seek to get above all of that and
to show the world that there is something more –in life, in love, in dreams,
anything and everything.
In
life, there are two options: settle or rise above.
