How to figure out what you want

Overheard recently at a party:

Oh, I’d love to learn to speak French

I really want to visit Cuba

I wish I could play the piano

I want to get a new camera

A triathlon is something I’d like to do one day

I would love to be better at skiing

I want to learn how to make sushi

All were said by the same person.  Does he really want all of these? Yes, but to markedly different extents. And in a world of massive opportunity and excessive desire we have lost our sense of scale.  “Oh, there’s so much I want to do”, in a tone of desperation, is heard frequently. But the desire to learn French, the desire to visit Cuba, and the desire to get a new camera are not equal.

I would like to speak Chinese, and I’d like to visit Japan. As it stands I’ll probably visit Japan this year, and it’s equally probable that I will never be able to speak Chinese.

If you ask me for a list of skills I’d like to have, languages I’d like to speak, objects I’d like to possess, and other desires, I can come up with a list of hundreds. Everybody can. We need to be able to distinguish between our wants: are they pure wishful thinking, or something we actively desire and work towards?

A lot of our “wants” are fantasy-world dreams that will never be realised. The only way they’ll happen is if we find a lamp with a genie inside. Yeah, sure, I “want” to speak Chinese. But I’m not planning to put the work in any time soon, and I doubt I’ll ever have the motivation to learn. It’s wishful thinking, not a strong desire. On the other hand, I’m about to book a flight to Japan.

This distinction - between what we’d choose if somebody offered us a thousand wishes, and what we are prepared to work for - is one we gloss over. We end up feeling as though we want a lot.  It would be better to remove a whole swathe of things from our ‘want’ list. If we’re not prepared to work for it, book it right now, or sacrifice for it, then we don’t really want it. It should be relegated to the land of wishful thinking.

By sifting out our true desires we will be able to focus.  We won’t feel confused by all the things that we want, as we’ll see that we don’t deeply desire them all. In fact our list will shrink, and our goal-setting will become sharper.  Think about each thing that you “want”, and ask yourself whether you’re prepared to work for it or sacrifice for it; if the answer is ‘no’ then cross it off your list.  You don’t want it enough.