Wherever You Are Is Someone’s Somewhere Else: Or, Why It’s Okay To Settle Down and Not Move Up
Why is a direction the guiding metaphor for our entire lives? Think about it: what is it about “up” that makes it so appealing?…couldn’t staying “down” be successful for some people, or moving “sideways” or even, in some cases, “backwards?”
One of the scariest words in the English language, or maybe simply in American English, is “settling.” You’re never supposed to settle for anything. Not in relationships, in work, in your personal life, in your career ambitions, and definitely not in your dreams. You’re always supposed to shoot for the moon, climb the ladder, challenge yourself, upgrade, expand. Your first jobs are temporary, just for experience; so, too, for your first few relationships (practice makes perfect, after all). Your first home is just a “starter” home, as is your first car, something to sell in a few years once you’ve outgrown them and need something bigger, more flashy, and more indicative of your future success. Why should you settle for anything less than you deserve? And you deserve “the best,” whatever that is, but it’s certainly not what you have now, but what you could have, one day, if only you keep climbing. Onwards and upwards!
This is good, generic advice as far as it goes, but it lacks the one thing that makes a human life meaningful and unique: context. Too often, we give the same advice to everyone, regardless of their situation, class, or culture, assuming that when it comes to the philosophy of success, one size truly fits all.
But does it really? Is success truly defined the same way by everyone regardless of background and ambition? Does it even have one definition, and does that definition always orbit around the idea of moving up? After all, why is a direction the guiding metaphor for our entire lives? Think about it: what is it about “up” that makes it so appealing? It’s really just an illusion of going higher than everyone else, of looking down on people who still haven’t made it, and in some sense, of playing God. But couldn’t staying “down” be successful for some people, or moving “sideways” or even, in some cases, “backwards?”
Almost exactly 30 years ago, my Freshman Composition 1 professor had us respond to an essay by Arnold Schwarzenegger for our final exam. The essay was about success and what he felt propelled him to the top (top = up). While I can’t locate this particular essay, I do remember much of what he wrote about, because even at the time it annoyed me as a narrowly dogmatic definition of success and the idea of “making it.” Sure, by any standard of measurement, Schwarzenegger is a wildly successful man: body builder, actor, politician, etc. I would never deny the contrary. And yet, in the essay, he never defined success as finding meaning or deep understanding of a specific field or skill; rather, he viewed each one as another step on the ladder leading him up towards…something else. What was he looking for up there? Vaguely, it seems, he wanted fame and notoriety. To be “the best,” even though he wasn’t always interested in the aesthetics of any one career or discipline other than bodybuilding, which he seemed to really love and enjoy. And yet, he tossed it aside as soon as the next step came in view.
The thesis of his essay, which I still remember all these years later, was that as soon as you “master” one discipline, be ready to move onto the next one, in a never-ending cycle of moving, climbing, succeeding. In other words, stay “hungry” for the next challenge and chance to be successful. In his eyes, standing still or remaining in one place for too long is being self-satisfied or self-defeating, since otherwise, you stop pushing yourself and become lazy and complacent. It certainly worked for him, as he rose in the ranks to become the world’s greatest bodybuilder, the world’s top-grossing actor (or close to it), and one of the world’s most recognizable politicians. He did all of this, he wrote, because he kept moving up and refused to be satisfied with what he had at any one point in his journey. In short, he never settled. Or, to quote the villain of the not-so successful film, Wonder Woman 1984, “life is good…but it could be better.”
However, while we could argue that by any metric Schwarzenegger was a successful actor, was he actually a “good” one? Certainly, he got better throughout his career: compare his wooden performance in something like Hercules in New York (1970) to his more confident performance in Conan the Barbarian (1982) to his more natural comedic timing in Kindergarten Cop (1990). There’s definitely a progression here, a movement forward, or rather, a “deepening” of understanding of what it means to be an actor. Yet it would be difficult to argue that he was ever a great actor, someone who had range, who could play a variety of roles that didn’t constantly remind you of the Terminator. A good measure of this is how his career is defined by one-liners, so that more people remember “I’ll be back,” or “Hasta la vista, baby,” more than the characters he played or the movies he spoke them in.
Maybe this is splitting hairs, and I certainly don’t mean to disparage his considerable career in film, which truly defined an era. Yet in the context of his essay — and his philosophy of life — Schwarzenegger had to move up, and ultimately, out of acting to achieve his next plateau of success. In his mind he had done all he could in acting, so to stay hungry, he had to find something else: in this case, politics, which is arguably just acting on a much larger stage (and much worse acting). But what if Schwarzenegger had looked at his career in terms of “down” rather than “up”? Was there no way to stay hungry by staying put? Couldn’t acting be explored in any number of directions, and instead of viewed as a stepping stone, couldn’t he have plunged much “deeper” into the reality of being an actor?
In his very narrow view of acting, he only saw himself as an action hero, making endless permutations of Terminator, Predator, and The Last Action Hero. To his credit, he did attempt the transition into comedy, and proved himself surprisingly adept at making fun of himself (and his image). Yet that was just a brief shoehorn at the end of his career, after which he catapulted himself into the big-time of American politics. And when politics faltered (I imagined he expected to make the climb from governor to president), he had a hard time finding the next big step, and blundered into tiresome sequels and wince-inducing roles in The Apprentice (never a good idea to ride on Trump’s coattails).
He still achieved great things, and he’s still an important force in the media, but if we’re really being honest, wouldn’t he have better served entertainment — and arguably, himself — if he had spent the rest of his career as an actor? Imagine the movies he might have made, and the roles he might have defined, if he had shed his action hero image for something more intimate and personal? What if he had made German language films, too, so we could see him in his native culture, without having to hide behind the accent?
My point in this essay (and with this example) is to suggest that Schwarzenegger honed in on a very American idea of success, which is often at odds with true self-discovery. Success in this country is always about “making it,” which often requires more than a little “faking it.” You have to look the part, which is about surface glitter and short-term gains. This allows you to constantly pivot towards that elusive “something else” that is always just a bit higher, and that you’re really made for, since you obviously don’t belong here, among all these people who have settled for something less. For this reason, almost anyone in any career is expected to bide their time before making the leap into some form of management. Success is never at the bottom of the company, but always at the top, in the administration, among people who occupy that tenuous plateau known as “leadership.”
In this country we’ve made leadership its own career, its own course of study, regardless of degree or vocation. Like success itself, this suggests that everyone wants the same thing, and requires the same skill set to achieve their goals. The end result is a preponderance of people clambering to the top so they can make decisions for an increasingly dwindling pool of people actually doing the job “down below.”
I’ve seen this happen so many times in my life and career: someone genuinely good at their job, who makes a positive contribution to their company or institution is rewarded with “the call.” The call to pivot, to move up, to advance their career. In other words, to stop doing the job they trained for. That’s the real job we should all aspire to, after all. If you’re not moving up you’re standing still, ignoring your natural appetite, and worst of all, settling. So they continue to advance “up” in the ranks, moving farther and farther away from their actual skill set. Sure, the extra money certainly helps assuage those niggling doubts, and the respect that comes with leadership in this country should do the rest. But what does it say about our talent pool that everyone, regardless of ability, has to wind up in the same job?
Obviously, I’m not advocating that you have to take the first job that comes around, much less endure a job you hate. Nor should you necessarily marry the first person you fall in love with or put down roots in the first house you can actually afford. Remember, context is everything. Sometimes it makes sense to move on, to advance, or simply, to move in a different direction. But moving up isn’t necessarily moving forward; it’s not necessarily moving at all. Exploration and personal growth can happen anywhere, and validation, when you find it, should never be taken lightly. If you find satisfaction in a job or a relationship, don’t assume that being happy is a sign of weakness or self-delusion.
Conversely, you don’t have to move on just because the ‘honeymoon’ is over. Familiarity isn’t by itself a sign to move on, but to explore much deeper than you possibly could before. You simply need a level playing field so you’re not reinventing the wheel every day, or looking over your shoulder to see if someone’s coming to eject you for being an impostor (because we all feel the footsteps of impostor syndrome behind us).
Think about it like this: when you walk into a darkened room, you have no idea where anything is. It’s scary and intimidating, and you’re going to bump into things. But when you find the light switch, you get instant illumination. You can see everything in its proper place. However, seeing isn’t knowing. It’s navigation. It takes much more time to explore the room, and then to use the room in a way that makes sense and becomes part of your daily routine. And even when it becomes part of a routine, when you no longer have to poke around and guess, that’s not the end of your journey. After all, you can redecorate a room; you can change the layout; you can also invite someone else into the room and see it from their perspective (especially if they decide to live with you). In short, the journey doesn’t end because you know the layout. You can never really know something in its entirety, since there’s always a new way of seeing it, existing with it, and using it effectively.
In modern American culture, too many people that settling “down” is the antithesis of moving “up” (or forward). Marriages end in divorce because someone feels trapped and longs for the freedom they once had when single. But quite often, what that really means is that they’ve decided to look at their partner in only one way, in only one light. To settle means more than settling in one place or one job or relationship; it also means to settle into a single mode of thought. The mind can wander and explore and grow without having to move or travel. Indeed, as Lao Tzu writes in the Tao te Ching,
Without going outside
one can know the whole world
Without looking out the window
one can see the ways of Heaven
The farther one goes
The less one knows (Verse 47, translated by Jonathan Star)
In other words, there are many ways to see and know the world, and traveling to say, Paris, won’t make you a Parisian alone. Learning the language and reading about its history and culture can make you more of a ‘native’ than someone who lives there. In the same way, something like “heaven” is as much inside as out; someone with a troubled mind won’t find peace anywhere, no matter how far they travel. True knowledge and contentment is found within, however much you seek it ‘without.’
To take this a step farther, merely switching jobs or pursuits won’t necessarily make you any sharper or “hungrier” than staying put, especially if you are going “deeper” into the realities of that profession. Learning doesn’t require you to be in a specific place at a specific time. Sure, going to class helps, and learning with other people is also useful, but it’s not the only way to learn. It’s merely a supplement to other forms of learning. In the end, to learn and become a master of any subject requires rigorous thought and practice in your own mind, and that’s something you take with you wherever you go. A single job can be yield a lifetime of exercise, practice, and mastery.
To say that you’ve learned all there is to learn in a specific place or job is a comforting thought — and an erroneous one. Though Schwarzenegger moved on to other pursuits in his life, I’m sure he would be the first person to admit that there’s always something new to learn about bodybuilding. And while there’s nothing wrong with trying new things and challenging your range of experience, you have to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. If you feel that success is a wind that blows you endlessly forward, simply for the sake of movement, then it’s just blowing hot air. From a certain perspective, moving forward can also look like running away.
When I got my first teaching job after my PhD, it wasn’t my ‘dream job’ much less my dream location. Most of my friends and mentors assured me it was just a “starter” job. A way to get my feet wet, build publications, and poise myself for the next scramble up the ladder. Initially, I believed them, since I deserved “the best,” and a first job couldn’t be a best job. Yet as I was teaching and learning the ropes, I met a colleague who was also “not from around here,” but who had decided against all odds to stay put. As she explained it to me, “you have to bloom where you’re planted.” It’s a surprisingly profound piece of advice, since it suggests that the soil doesn’t matter as much as the seed. You can always complain that this area gets more water or that this area gets more sun, but the reality is that the seed is meant to grow, and life can cling to even the most tenacious holds.
I once discarded soil from a dead plant in my backyard, and in that tiny clump of soil, a seed somehow landed and grew a long, tangled vine that snaked around my entire abandoned grill and continues to thrive, sprouting leaves and tendrils. Most people would look at that miserable clump of soil and say, “that’s not the right place to build a career or a family,” or “what the hell can I be expected to do with that?” Yet there it remains, growing year after year, undiminished, even when so many heartier plants have withered away to nothing. Is that success, or is that settling?
In my own career, I’ve realized that I can never really touch bottom if I never stop learning or never stop asking myself, what am I trying to do here? The second something becomes routine, that’s when I know that I’ve “settled” into the wrong kind of experience. However, a similarly wrong response is to uproot myself and look for a new career or adventure. Instead I can simply shake myself out of the routine and find a new way to experience my reality. For example, as a teacher, there are certain books I teach over and over again, chief among them Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’ve probably taught it a dozen times in the last ten years. By now, I should have it pretty much set in stone, with a few well-worn powerpoints and lecture notes ready to go. Instead, I start from scratch every single time I approach the text. I always buy a new copy of the book (so I don’t rely on old notes), and go through the work page by page, making new notes and searching for new connections. I read new (and old) criticism about the text, and try to think about new ways to connect the text to the world and moment we’re living in.
Because of this, I sometimes teach the book through the lens of Shelley’s life, bringing in her diary entries and reading journals, as well as her own biography. In other years, I ignore her life entirely and teach the work through a haze of Romantic imagery — Goya’s paintings and engravings, Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, etc. Other years, I focus more on Gothic literature itself, seeing Frankenstein as part of the family tree of The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Castle of Otranto, and even Edgar Allen Poe. In the future I’ll find still more approaches, making the work new each time I teach it, and challenging the notion that it’s the same old, same old, and that I need to envision a new life in a new career.
A famous chef once said that “once I stop learning, I’m dead.” To me, that’s the true definition of settling. Because the lie is that you can ever learn enough in one life, in one job. The onion keeps peeling, yielding more mysteries and more delights. I often wonder how many people have abandon their true life’s calling, and so many amazing experiences, simply because they felt the anxiety to move on and challenge themselves somewhere else. But everywhere we are is someone else’s somewhere else, so why not make it here, right now, today and tomorrow? It’s not a perfect recipe for success and contentment, but neither is the hope that the real ‘you’ lies just beyond the next horizon, and the one after that, and after that one.
So go on, feel free to settle. As long as settling means you never stop looking at the wonder and complexity of your ‘simple’ life.
