This Is The Version Of Your Twenties You Should Settle For

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Settle for being just as proud of your failures as you are of your accomplishments, because failures are scars that say, “I’m someone who tries things.” Your failures are proof that you are someone who understands the possibility of shame and embarrassment and inadequacy coming your way and you do stuff anyway.

Settle for being average sometimes. Being average is not always a bad thing. Being average often just means that you’re human – that you have some truly extraordinary moments but that your life is also made up of a lot of tiny, lovely little moments where the most remarkable thing that happened was an unexpected laugh on a crappy day or a heart-lifting conversation with a friendly barista at 6:30 in the morning.

Settle for a life where you’re okay with being insecure sometimes. Accept the fact that on some days you’re going to feel on top of the world and on other days you’re going to feel just as unsteady and unconfident as the high school freshman version of yourself, standing in the cafeteria and not knowing where you belong. Be okay with this because it makes you more empathetic, more aware of the impact you can have on others, more cognizant of the fact that everybody feels like shit sometimes. Remember that even the coolest person you know has their high-school-freshman-in-the-cafertia moments.

Settle for the fact that you’re just going to be tired a lot, or always. You are the one who gets to decide if you’re tired from doing nothing or you’re tired from trying everything.

Settle for a life where you’re aware of your own flaws without ever beating yourself up. Be conscious of the things you need to work on and the times where you could have been a better person, but never rip yourself up or walk all over yourself just to make someone else feel more comfortable.

Settle for a life where you’re okay not knowing a lot of things. If you knew everything, there would be no point in continuing to live – your journey and your process and your period of growth would be over. There will always be new things to learn, new places to explore, new people to love. Be grateful for this. There will always be new opportunities to explore who you are or new pieces of information with which you can feed your mind. Your own lack of knowledge is a gift that will never cease to exist.

Settle for a life where you are imperfect, wobbly, always changing. There is no point where you need to be finished, complete, done. We thrive on problems, we thrive on challenges, we thrive on the dare to keep reshaping ourselves. If this is the kind of life, the kind of mindset, that you can settle for – you’ll never be settling at all. You’ll just be confirming the fact that you are very much alive. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

I’m a staff writer for Thought Catalog. I like comedy and improv. I live in Chicago. My Uber rating is just okay.

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