analog

At what point do you look at where you are and what you have, and stop settling for what you have? When do you strike that hot iron rather than letting it cool because you're just settling for what you've got?

Are you like a friend of mine who settles for his "meh" relationship, even though there is a female friend of his with whom he really clicks, simply because he's already in a relationship? At what point do YOU stop settling for what life brings you, what life thrusts upon you, what stagnant realities in which you live, and grab the reigns back from fate to make change for yourself?

My friend is settling. He's happy enough, I guess, but takes opportunities to fill up his time with his chick with forced-closeness activities. It almost seems like he's intentionally trying to keep the thing going when he's really pretty sure it just isn't working anymore. Meanwhile, the chick he talks with is stuck liking a guy in a relationship, feeling guilty (I know both of them, and thankfully she's pretty comfortable with talking to me) because she likes a guy who's with someone, but at the same time missing him. He tells her he misses her, but I can't imagine how it makes her feel to see him say that but have absolutely no interest whatsoever in doing anything about it.

The hardest thing, she told me once, was having to hear him say it's bad timing. He even said something to the effect of, "maybe in another life". So not only is he settling for what he has, but he's making every reason not to accept that sometimes people click, and not every relationship stands the test of time, simply because they've already been together for a few years.

So... how much do you settle, and how much of your life is the way it is because you've settled rather than taken action?