Considering your wants?
There seems to be an ever increasing array of choices and opportunities in our lives, their complexities and sophistication are expanding. Even in something as old fashioned and simple as watching the television, on a single streaming service there is more entertainment than a person could watch in a lifetime. We have traded certainty for choice, the number of career paths are nearly infinite now, gone are the days of a single job that you spend your life in, though this is not a fault, it does means that you have the chance to find a path that is perfect for you, but it can leave people feeling lost. If you can decide with confidence it is amazing, but it requires perfect knowledge of the future that is impossible, which is the rub that ignites the fires of decision paralysis and leaves us with the sense that we are missing out, there are thousand routes through the medical profession alone, being a doctor is a broad church and you are still left with the feeling that you could have been an astronaut, golfer or anything that you can imagine and fantasies about, we are confused and need clarity.
Which leads us to the question of how you cut through this indecision, the fact that is up to you does not really help and that is assuming that it is, though to some extent it is no matter where you live you still have a range of option, just not great ones. Though everyone, of course, has limitations due to their life circumstances and situation, how the genetic game of chance played out for you, and there is nothing you can do about your parents no matter how much you wish you could. You are not born free of previous history, there are persistent inequalities in the world, we do not get to start from a blank page, though it can be useful to consider how you would want your life to be if you were free of them, what kind of life you would want.
That is the purpose of this article, to truly consider what you want without limitation and then to see if there is a path that gets you as close to that as possible or at least in the ball park. If you love flying it does not mean that you have to be pilot or nothing, there is engineering, businesses, design, services that are all closely related. An accountant does not need to be the servant of rich people, there are charities, exciting industries that could have meaning for you, if you love music that might be your niche. Once you know what you love and gets you out of bed in the morning the rest is just organising your day so that you are doing them, you have a reason to pursue excellence and peak performance, and what you do is not as important as how you do it, your attitude to doing it, a bored uninterested doctor could well be a bad doctor despite any natural talent they might have.
As natural talent only really helps if you also put in the work to be better, to do the deliberate practise necessary to be outstanding and it really is better to be excellent rather than just fine at something for the money, not just for society but for yourself. To have developed talent that is used to the maximum is joyful, we witness it in the performance of elite sport to see a winger in full flight, dodging tackle is performance art at it's best, it gives you joy just watching it, never mind how it feels to the athlete. It is the joy of seeing alignment between someone’s skill and meaning, which is why it is so insulting to the audience when it turns out the only thing they really care about is money and fame, we feel betrayed and saddened at the opportunity that they are wasting and you wish you had.
However just not having something is not actually the same as wanting it for yourself, you can be curious about what you do not have, you can admire talent without wanting the downsides, if you want to win a marathon but you might not necessary feel the same about getting up early in the morning and running ten miles before breakfast. You have to want to do the training, it has to be the thing that brings you joy not the prizes and glory as they are the one percentage of the life of a runner, they are not guaranteed, they depend on other people, your relative performance to them and they are entirely external to you, though they are certainty what enables someone to devote their whole lives to running and nothing else. The capitalist system is very good at getting people to specialise in one thing and if that one thing is what you want to do to exclusion of everything else that is a win for you and everyone, that is why we reward it.
Though I do not believe that it is the correct answer for everyone or even most people, being elite requires sacrifice, what appeals to the majority is having a balance between different aspects of their lives. It might be a mix of family, friends, fun stuff, hard work and healthy living, all these thing might not be in balance at every stage of your life, though each need constant attention no matter how limited it might be. Whilst you do not need to know every want immediately, as long as you are investing a little in something that is a long term want and need at least you are making progress towards a life that is full of meaning and the fulfillment of those wants.
What is required is the time to consider what you do want and then that you take action on at least one of them and it is fine to work on one want at a time. You should spend the time to investigate and experiment with your wants, a grand idea can easily be broken down into small steps, if you wish to take a grand hike, you best start with small walks and work up to longer distances, you do not reach the north pole by a causal hour long walk, you walk all day long and then sleep in freezing tent. It is possible to do extraordinary things if you break them down into small bites and you have a mission that requires it.
However that decision on what you want is hard, you can start with small wants and work your way up to larger ones as they come into focus, whilst you wait for your path to reveal itself, it is worth developing skills whatever appeals to you. Though general skills are a good place to start like reading, writing, maths, meditation, drawing, logical thinking, they help with every other skill you could want to acquire, they are the bedrock of clear and good thinking, but to truly understand yourself, you have to listen to yourself. In particularly to your feelings and intuition, that silence within everyone which speaks with a witnessing presence, it is detached from ego, it does not think in terms of “I”, it never uses the term rather it speaks with feelings and authority, it forms ideas that filter through the lens of our consciousness, it gives you images and impressions. Rather than saying I want to make furniture, it gives you the feeling of sanding and then leaves it to you if you want to pursue that feeling, if you do you might end up a carpenter or a nicer table, it is not definite except when you are going down the wrong rabbit hole.
The same is true for relationships, intuition tells you that it feels good or bad and you ignore it at your peril, that is why we say it is a matter of the heart not mind when it comes to love. Logic can never explain it and often it run contrary to what you think you want or know to be a good idea, though they are best when both the heart and the mind is in agreement and happy with each other. Longing is not easily explained but it is there to guide your ship towards a safe harbour, when you miss something that tells you it is good and worth more than you can imagine in such an uncertain world. A person who makes sense to both sides of you, that you trust and can envision growing old with, that is someone you should not give up on or distanced yourself from except to protect your heart when that love is not returned, wants are never bad but it does not mean you will get exactly what you want, life is strange that why.
Sometimes a want is just a lighthouse that guides you away from danger and what is bad for you. Life is not simple, it is not easy to understand but those who consider their wants at least have a chance to get to a good place, so focus on your wants without greed or mere lust and consider them with seriousness and give them a little time to develop into a clearer picture. Though most importantly once you have considered your wants, you then have to take action, otherwise consideration is just daydreaming, and pleasant as that is, it only has meaning if it the beginning of a journey and is not just a distraction, what matters is the action that turns wants into reality, so commit to your wants, then act, and you might end up considering yourself better off.
