How to understand what we really want

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If we don’t think and ask ourselves what we really want, we can spend our whole life on delusions imposed on us by others. Many of us are tired to the point that we stopped wanting anything at all. Having dealt with your desires, you can avoid many mistakes.

Why is it important

Our desires are like a river bed that crosses the landscape of our life. Water (our behavior) is automatically directed along this channel in the direction in which it was dug.

If you live passively, this channel is filled with meaningless actions dictated by nature and society. When millions of promotional offers compete for our attention, playing on our doubts and feelings of insecurity, there is often simply not enough willpower to deal with this flood. We turn to that which satisfies our physiological needs (food, sex), or to the eternal human aspirations (wealth, fame, power).

Fortunately, the direction of this channel (our desires) can be deliberately changed. This is not easy to do, but it is quite possible.

How to determine what you want and start wanting it

The following two approaches will help you with this.

1. Experiment and try to be convinced of everything from your own experience.
2. Spend time with people who want what you want.

1. Own experience

One of the best ways to always understand what you want is to pay attention to your direct hands-on experience. Experiment, and it will be easier for you to determine what you really want.

See things as they are

Instead of spending your life just assuming what these or those things and activities are, form your own opinion.

It doesn't matter what we are talking about, a new career or new habits, we can always check what it feels like on our own experience.

For example, after watching a movie, you wanted to become an actor. Until you start taking acting classes and auditions, you won't know if this career is really right for you. Only after experiencing all the difficulties of the profession - memorizing scenes, rehearsals, frequent refusals and emotional stress - will you be able to decide.

Only in this way your desires will be dictated not by external sources, but by your own experience.

Internal rating system

We must learn to evaluate ourselves in such a way that others cannot influence our idea of our own worth.

Imagine, for example, that a marathon runner and a sprinter are running nearby. If they decide by mistake that they are in the same race, each will try to change their speed and in the end both will lose their competition.

This happens when we compare ourselves to others. We see that some have achieved much more in life than we did. But at the same time, we do not think that they spent 10 years on this, we do not remember that they made many sacrifices to achieve this result.

An internal rating system will help us to respect our own experience and value our own aspirations first of all, and not those that are imposed on us by advertising and television.

After all, in the final analysis, we must evaluate ourselves by our actions, and not only by the results to which they lead.

Useful Tips

• Meditate. Thanks to this, you will create a distance between yourself and your thoughts and feelings, and this will save you from hasty actions.
• Imagine that a god or someone you respect (your great-grandfather, instructor, or historical figure) is watching you. This will help you focus on what you are doing.
• Write down your thoughts. This will give you the opportunity to better understand and express your desires. Try writing for 20 minutes a day and you will see positive effects.

2. Spend time with people who want what you want

Of course, it's easier to be vegan when you live in a Buddhist monastery, not when your father is a butcher.

Therefore, when you understand what you want, try to surround yourself with people who want the same or something similar. This is related to the concept of "mimetic desire". In short, we want what others want.

Communication with people with whom we have the same desires does not mean that we have given up faith in ourselves and the internal assessment system. We simply place ourselves in an environment where our desires become more fulfilled, and allow others to support us.

Useful Tips

• Write down the names of the five people you love to spend time with the most, and the five people you would like to hang out with the least. If the reasons why you want to see the first five can benefit your desires, try to spend more time with them (and less time with the others).
• Read good books (not the most popular, but those that are directly related to your desires). Pay special attention to biographies, this will help you create your own cabinet of invisible advisors from historical figures.
• Pay attention to how your desires change as you interact with different people.

conclusions

You can consider yourself successful all your life and only before you die you realize that time was wasted on trifles.

If you learn to understand your desires, listen to your own experience, and not to the stereotypes imposed by society, and surround yourself with the right people, you will notice how your life will change.