I Deserve Better

A friend recently told me "You deserve better".  I have been thinking a lot about that remark and whether or not I agree.  As always, I am able to see the situation from many angles, as long as I don't mind the reflection looking back at me.

In most ways, I would say I do not deserve any more than what I have - a comfortable home, a job I like, and a family I would do anything for.  That is not to say I don't want better.  I want all sorts of things, large and small, and there's no point in listing them.  There, right there.  It's that sense of resignation that has been bothering me.  It's not that I deserve better, or that I want better, it's that implication that I have stopped thinking I could do better.

I used to be much more ambitious and determined and hopeful.  I knew what I wanted and what I was willing to do or give up to get it.  Life has not always turned out the way I had hoped or planned.  For the most part I am not bitter about these things, especially if I believe I did all I could do to make them work.  But ambition and determination have been replaced by laziness and cynicism.  Much easier and more convenient to gripe about things than to change them or replace them.

But I must still have hope, right?  Yeah, let's call it hope that gets me through the day without stopping for a drink, that keeps disappointment from turning to bitterness, that allows me to even consider that I could have more.  And if I still have hope, then maybe I can muster up a little more determination.  And if not ambition exactly, then at least I can identify which things are worth wanting and working for.

If I don't at least acknowledge the idea of "more", then I have got exactly what I deserve.