We accept the love we think we deserve

It's on you.

I did not come up with the title. Neither did ChatGPT. It’s from a movie  - Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s the Emma Watson movie that you haven’t seen. An introverted 15-year-old boy navigating through high school and falling for Emma - how could he not?

He falls for her, and she falls for someone else; it’s a classic. There’s a twist, though. You can watch the movie for that. But this line stayed with me even days after I saw the film: “We accept the love we think we deserve.” There are lines you hear occasionally that change how you look at things, and for me, it was this.

I pulled out my imaginary magnifying glass and started to examine every aspect of my life through this new lens. 

I asked why we crave love. To feel important, right? To feel validated it’s one of those things that makes us feel alive - better about ourselves. To be loved is to be wanted. And who doesn’t want to be wanted?

Recently, I asked a friend similar quarter-life crisis questions: Are you seeing someone? Do you want kids? Will you get married? And he replied, "I don't know man - I just want to be in love.” And I went like, huh. I didn’t look at it that way. The baseline of all the things I was asking him about is love. And I didn’t pause to look at that or ask him that. I asked him everything around it. It’s like eating only the pizza's crust and leaving the actual pizza. That’s a weird way to eat, no?

Then why do we do it so easily in our day-to-day lives? Because it’s easy. Why do we accept the love we think we deserve? Because it’s easy. Humans are wired for convenience. 

The line shifts the blame onto you. It tells us explicitly that we are in complete control over how much love we have in our lives. We like to think it’s more of chance so we can shift the onus on something else, something myriad. But if we are the ones accepting it based on our self-worth, we are the ones ultimately in control. 

Suppose you broaden this scope and ask yourself: Do I accept the parents I think I deserve? Do I accept this job I think I deserve? Do I accept the sandwich I think I deserve? Where does the buck end?

 It ends where you think it deserves to end. The quote reinforced my belief that many things around us are our choices, even if they seem they aren’t. We accept the love we think we deserve, and that maybe starts with how much you love yourself.