What do you want?

[forgotten_aria]

How does one figure out what they want? Not what they think other people want them to want or what they've been told all their life they're supposed to want. Is this hard for most people, or do most people always know what they want?

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Hm...I think some people know and some people struggle, and probably a lot of us know about some things and struggle about others. But also, it may depend on the scale you're talking about--which it sounds like you're talking about very large global things?

For myself, I'm pretty good at knowing what I want in the specific: I want to do this project, be closer friends with that person, live in this area, not have to commute by car. It's harder to imagine the longer range: where do I want to be in 5 years? Except insofar as I have things now that I expect to still want then, I don't really know. Which, of course, makes it hard to figure out how to work towards where I want to be in the future....

[forgotten_aria]

Yes, the long term. I know what I want when I buy an item, for instance, but what do I really want to add to the world and do with my remaining years.