Why Do We Keep Talking Ourselves Out of What We Want?

Some desires barely survive the week.

Others survive decades.

You keep thinking about Paris. Or writing. Or learning to paint. Or starting a business. Or living somewhere entirely different.

And every time the idea appears, you have an answer ready.

It’s too expensive. Too impractical. Too disruptive. Too late. You don't have the talent. You have responsibilities. You should be satisfied with what you already have.

Some of those objections may be entirely legitimate, but there's something curious about the speed with which we produce them.

Before we've seriously considered what we want, we're already explaining why we can't have it.

Wanting something is not the same as deciding to do it

This distinction matters.

We often treat desire as though acknowledging it creates an obligation.

If I admit that I want to live in France, now I have to move to France. If I acknowledge that I want to write, I have to become a writer. If I let myself imagine a different kind of work, I have to abandon the career I've spent years building.

Of course we don't. We can become curious about a desire without turning it into a plan.

But when we collapse wanting and doing into the same thing, practicality arrives far too early in the conversation.

And practicality is very good at winning arguments.

Some of our objections aren't really about feasibility

“I can't” is sometimes a statement of fact. Sometimes it's something else.

It can mean:

·      I don't know how.

·      I'm afraid I might fail.

·      I'm afraid I might succeed and then have to change things.

·      People would be surprised.

·      This doesn't fit the person I've understood myself to be.

·      I don't know how to justify wanting it.

·      Or perhaps the particularly potent: Who am I to do that?

These aren't necessarily reasons to pursue the thing, but they're worth distinguishing from genuine impossibility.

A practical obstacle asks for information.

An internal prohibition asks a different question entirely.

Persistence doesn't prove anything

I don't believe that because something keeps returning, we're “meant” to do it.

A recurring interest isn't an instruction from the universe.

Some longings are fantasies. Some are nostalgic. Some represent needs that could be met in entirely different ways. Some disappear once we examine them closely.

But that's precisely why examination matters.

If an idea has accompanied you for ten years, perhaps it deserves something more thoughtful than the same automatic dismissal you've given it for ten years.

Not obedience.

Respect. Enough respect to ask what is actually contained in it.

Maybe Paris isn't about Paris.

Maybe it is.

You don't know until you stop arguing with the idea long enough to become curious about it.

Ask a different question

When a persistent desire resurfaces, instead of immediately asking:

Can I actually do this?

try asking: What is it about this that I want?

That question opens things up.

Perhaps what attracts you to Paris is walkability, beauty, anonymity, cultural life, or the possibility of being someone slightly different from the person you've been at home.

Perhaps “I want to write a book” contains a desire to create something, to be heard, to make sense of an experience, or simply to find out whether you can.

Perhaps the garden you've imagined for twenty years isn't really about gardening at all.

Once you understand more specifically what you're drawn toward, the practical questions become much more useful.

You may discover that the original dream matters enormously. You may discover another way to meet what lies underneath it. Or you may finally decide that you've outgrown it.

All three are information.

Practicality gets its turn

There is absolutely a time for asking whether something is affordable, responsible, achievable or wise.

There is a time for spreadsheets. There is a time for logistics. There is even a time for deciding, regretfully, no. But perhaps practicality shouldn't always get the first word.

Before asking whether you can have what you want, it may be worth understanding what you actually want—and why you've been so reluctant to let yourself want it.