Being picky is good — no, really

While waiting for the bus on the North Side a couple of days ago, I felt something that I… While waiting for the bus on the North Side a couple of days ago, I felt something that I hadn’t experienced in awhile: the sun on my face. Below the Heinz bottle that pours ketchup on the Heinz building is a screen that alternates between flashing the time and the temperature. It revealed that on that day, it was a pleasant 50 degrees.

Since sunny days with no rain in sight are about as rare in Pittsburgh as clean front yards are in South Oakland, you would think I would have been happy about it. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t help but wish that it was just eight degrees warmer or that the wind wasn’t blowing so hard. On a beautiful spring day, I found something to complain about.

At that moment I realized that I have a quality that I always found frustrating in other people: I am someone who is extremely hard to please.

No matter what the situation, I’m rarely satisfied. Even when eating the dessert I consider to be foolproof, a warm brownie with ice cream, I always find myself whining about how the ice cream to brownie ratio is off.

Another example is stuffy noses. When I have a stuffy nose and I’m in my miserable, mucus-clogged state, I always tell myself that when I’m healthy, I’ll never take my clear nose for granted. But sure enough, each time I regain my health I go back to taking for granted my clear nasal passage and find something else to complain about, like a sore back or a hangnail.

Don’t get me wrong; I fully understand how ridiculous and sad this is, especially because of how pathetic and benign most of my “problems” are. But when it comes to real issues and life decisions, it’s a good thing to be hard to please and refuse to simply settle.

Take our upcoming careers as an example. After all the years of education we’ve endured and all the money we, or our parents, have put into Pitt’s pockets, why should we settle for jobs that merely pay the bills but don’t make us happy? I’m not saying that we should turn down or quit any job that isn’t ideal. We still have to support ourselves financially and there will always be jobs that no one wants but are necessary. However, we owe it to ourselves to do something that we love. We shouldn’t be content with a job just because it doesn’t suck too badly.

Another important life situation in which refusing to settle is a good thing is getting married or being in a relationship. There’s a saying that goes, “Don’t settle for the one you can live with, find the one you can’t live without.” Although I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I learned this quote from AOL Instant Messenger profiles, usually typed in girly pink font, it holds a lot of truth.

Just because someone is a good person who makes you happy doesn’t mean you should marry him or her. Girls, there are plenty of great guys out there who will treat you well, but that’s not a good enough reason to marry him. The same goes for the guys.

I imagine that to get the most out of marriage, there has to be a lot more to it, like strong loyalty, viewing your spouse as a best friend, butterflies in your stomach after being together for years and all that stuff.

I’ll be the first to admit that never being happy with the weather or the quantity of ice cream on my brownie is a negative quality, especially considering how little I really have to complain about. But when it comes to serious matters like what we’ll do for the rest of our lives or whom we’ll spend it with, refusing to settle is a positive.

When I first entered college, getting good grades was my main concern. Once the good grades came, I worried that I wasn’t in enough clubs. Once I became more involved, I panicked over not having sufficient internships. It never ends. Although such a state of mind may seem paranoid and anxious to some, it seems healthy to me.

If we’re content with where we are, we’ll accept it, get used to it and stay there. We must keep reminding ourselves that no matter how good we are, we can always do better. It’s only then that we can make the most of our potential. Another quote of relevance — this one not coming from online profiles — says, “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, all you’ll ever get is all you’ve ever got.”

With life being as short as it is, we should refuse to accept anything but the best from ourselves. Why get B’s when you can get A’s? Why marry an average guy when you can marry an amazing man? Why be good when you can be great?

It would be good, no, great to send Anjali an e-mail at amn17@pitt.edu.