“We accept the love we think we deserve."

For months, I had seen this quote tweeted, used constantly as a caption on random selfies, and I'm pretty positive I pinned it once or twice on Pinterest. Even the first time I read it, immediately I thought YES! This is so true! If people don't think very highly of themselves, then they don't feel like they deserve to be loved or treated as if they're extraordinary. Therefore, we just accept the love that we think we deserve, and whether that's too much or too little just depends on who we are.

It doesn't really matter how old you are, or in what season of life that you're in, if you're a female, there is a fear that always lingers: Am I settling for less than what I deserve? Naturally, being the over-thinking, always-emotional female that I am, I constantly find myself asking this dreaded question. I ask it about my relationships, friendships, my job, my college major, basically any and every aspect of my life. Lately, I'm realizing that maybe the reason why I struggle with this so much is because very rarely am I ever actually honest with myself on the answer. Nobody wants to admit that they're settling, even if everyone else around knows it.

Here's a little secret about me: Long before I ever actually share my thoughts with the Twitter world, I will sit and ponder what inspirational advice I want to tweet, how it will show up on others' newsfeeds and what my projected retweet/favorite ratio will be. Kinda weird, I know. BUT, the reason I tell you this is because, for a while now, I've wanted to tweet something along the lines of, "What a person is willing to accept, says a lot about what they think they deserve." In my mind, I meant what actions a person is willing to put up with, how they allow others to treat them, the respect that they acquire, speaks volumes about how they view their own worth. For some odd reason though, the wording just never seemed right, and I couldn't figure out why.

Then finally, it clicked. Maybe there is no difference in accepting and in settling. Maybe they go hand-in-hand, because when you accept, you ultimately settle.

I think the hardest part is that when we accept certain things, we begin to fall into a mindset that being treated a certain way is "normal," and thus we begin to believe we've gotten as good as it's going to get, ultimately settling.

Back in high school, someone revealed to me a beautiful, hard truth: It doesn't matter who you are, there is always going to be someone else out there who is prettier, smarter, richer, more fit, more stylish, and the list goes on and on. The point of our life is not to try to compete with those people, but to just be the best version of ourselves that we can be.

Moral of the story: If there's always something better out there, then you've never truly "gotten as good as it's going to get."

The best way to sum up this idea of accepting vs. settling would have to be the serenity prayer:

• "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change"
  • Acceptance.
• "The courage to change the things I can"
  • Not settling and putting the time , effort and even finances into it.
• "And wisdom to know the difference."
  • A maturity and faith that it is in God's hands and He will take care of it.

So, here's my advice to all you ladies out there: Your worth, who you are, is NOT defined by anybody else's opinion of you. Not by your significant other, by your best friend, by that teacher who said you'd never make it in your career field, by the coach who belittled you, by ANYONE. You must always know your worth, what you are capable of and what you deserve. When you know these things, you'll know when you're accepting or when you're settling for less than you deserve.

And to the ladies out there like me, who don't always like the answer when they do decide to be honest with themselves every now and then, I hope that you will gain the courage and the strength to get up, start walking, and not look back until you've found exactly what you're looking for … and what you deserve.