I haven't had a phone for almost 2 years now, since December 24th 2017 to be exact 😅. The screen of my previous phone shattered beyond recognition and the cost to fix the screen was about the market value of the phone at that time so fixing it did not make sense 😢.
Since then, I've been using my school tablet mostly because I didn't want to buy a phone I wouldn't love and I only use my phone for like 4 months in a year. Since we aren't allowed to use phones in school so...
Upon graduation, or rather finishing school work, it became more pertinent that I get a new phone but by then I had already found a phone I loved but I couldn't afford it at the time and I couldn't bring myself to ask anyone I knew that could afford to buy it for me to do so 😔.
However, at that time, I could have afforded one that was also a great phone but not what I loved, fantasised and researched about for more than 9 months before that 😄 but I didn't want to settle 😞. If there's anything I try the most to avoid doing in my life is to settle. At every point in my life, especially recently I like to stop to ask myself if I'm settling for a situation below what I love and can achieve. Knowing this, I couldn't settle for the one I could afford at the time.
This decision made someone very close to me to be so irritated 
because said person did not understand why I couldn't just get the phone I could afford at the time and then when I can afford the one I love, move to that one.
Well... apart from not wanting to settle, I also didn't want to love deciding to settle. I knew there was a possibility of me buying the phone I could afford, learning to love it and never going for the initial one I wanted mostly because I'm very lazy and would rather not change too often and slightly because I would justify my settling situation.
So I didn't settle. I waited for 3 months extra. Now here we are. Now I can comfortably afford to get the phone and laptop I love for myself, I'm so glad I didn't settle but more so I'm thankful for the patience, grit and perseverance.
But had I not been able to afford my desired phone, would I be so happy? Well, maybe I would have settled now knowing I tried and what I wanted was elusive 
.
But before deciding not to settle initially, I did the math, I did the research, I studied best and worst case scenarios and saw that there was a huge possibility for me to get what I wanted if I did the needful. If this possibility did not exist, I would have settled in a heart beat.
So don't listen to the motivational speakers or quotes, or maybe listen with a pinch of salt. While we might all deserve the best, we won't always get what we deserve. Sometimes, we just have to make do with the best we can get. Sometimes, we have to settle when that's really all that is realistically possible and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. We shouldn't have to force ourselves into unhealthy unhappy situations just because we want to get what we "deserve". On some days, being content will prove to be a healthier attribute than unyielding perseverance.
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