Complacent. Defined as "pleased, especially with oneself or one's merits." It sounds lovely at first, until the latter part of the definition pops up. "Often without awareness of some potential danger or defect."
Maybe you've stayed in your college town far too long after graduation, thinking it'd be just a year until you could figure your way out. You have a job that pays well so you can't really complain. You and your partner, who you've been with for a year or so (who also happens to still have no clue what they're doing), are very happy with one another. You'll wait for them, you say, because you love them. You'll make your plans after they're able to get out and make their decisions. Then you'll embark on the next step together.
On paper, it sounds great. You've got the degree, the relationship, the job. Everything, it seems. Except you didn't realize before that your job pays well, but not great. Certainly below what you deserve, at least. Maybe you didn't see before that your partner is sucking the life out of you. They love you and you love them, but their wants and needs overshadow yours. You let it happen. You had plans, but they were deterred after they said they had to stay behind. Those heartbreaking thoughts of leaving them were too much for you. So you gave up on that dream - rather, you set it aside for later. Or so you say.
What about that grad school you wanted to attend? You never applied because it didn't seem to matter at the time. When did that trip to Europe ever happen? It didn't, because you kept putting it off. How many dates have you been on in the past year? One, maybe two? And why's that? Because you just can't be bothered with something like that. Where did all the time go? You wasted it.
Complacency is not to be mistaken for contentment. Being content means that you are a mild form of happy; comfortable, if you want to think of it that way. Contentment begins with accepting your situation for what it is and generally being okay with it. It's not always a bad thing. Being able to be content, in a way, is being mature. Complacency, however, comes with a sense of smugness. It's thinking that nothing could get any better because you can't look past what's right in front of you. It's having the audacity to think that nothing bad can hit you because you've made it. You don't try because you are too self-satisfied to realize the severity of your situation.
The problem with being complacent isn't really that you're being ignorant to your situation or that you've become aware to the fact that it could be so much better than it is. The worst part about complacency is that it teeters so dangerously on the line that separates complacency and contentment. Once you've stumbled past that place of complacency, you're automatically stuck. You've seen what you can get to and you stay there. That's where the ignorance kicks in.
I'm not saying that you can't have it all - you certainly can. And, as stated above, contentment is not always a bad thing. The type of contentment to avoid is the kind that makes you glued to one spot. You feel as though this is the peak and that you'll stay here because it's just fine. The complacency has come and gone. You saw what your life was and, instead of fixing what was wrong, you decided to be content. You didn't become content. There's a big difference.
That's a genuine fear I feel that most people have - sitting around on your ass, not moving forward or backward, just floating around unknowingly and with no direction. Backward is one thing because you can always move forward. Forward is forward. But sitting still, unsure of what to do, or unsure of what to change? That's something to be afraid of. While contentment and complacency are two vastly different things in principle, they tend to bounce off one another a lot. To ensure you never become too much of either, never lose sight of what gives your passion a spark, your heart an extra thump, or your lungs a reason to inhale, exhale.
