What do you really want?
How can we know what we want? Perhaps this starts with who we already are.
And who we are is a deep question in itself, but at a surface level, it’s perhaps a combination of our innate character, our personal philosophy, what we’ve done in the past simply because we like doing it for ourselves and not for any sense of gain or recognition or even perceived outcome by someone else.
Of course, one can argue that these aren’t really what make us who we are, to which I’d say it’s a starting point. After all, the examination of these things and the questioning of their authenticity and their source is valuable in itself. We can easily go through life never or rarely evaluating these, believing that it was ours all along. But what really teaches us is lived experience, specifically, pain and struggle.
It’s the pain and struggle that molds us and alters our trajectory. This is not to make life solely about our pasts, but it’s what we worked hard to become and what we earned to have that we truly value.
So perhaps what we want is not really what society tells us to want. Maybe it’s deeply personal, unique to us even. The boring answers to this are the ones that everyone else wants: more money, a nice place to live, material things that signify status. But what is it that you really want? As if your existence depends upon it? That if you were to only have these things in life and nothing more, you’d sacrifice everything else that you have? Something that you’d give up the things that you only kind of want, for what you must have?
In short, what is it that you’re willing to struggle for and not just desire? What is worth the pain in order to earn something for yourself? What are the things you yearn for that are solely for you—not for someone else’s recognition, but for your own self-respect, self-esteem, and self-worth?
Ultimately, it’s not about how someone else judges your life when you pass. People might think about your external accomplishments and possessions. This is easy to see because success and wealth are the things that everyone else wants. These are also the things that people can see for themselves. But only you would really know if you’ve identified what you really wanted, if you went after what you wanted, and how you went about going after it.
It’s worth asking every now and then. Hold it close to the chest. And go after it. I’ll leave you with this quote:
”Attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.“
September 20, 2024