Do You Know What You Want?

According to ancient wisdom, we humans find lasting happiness only when we shrink our sense of self and its desires. When we reduce our wants, we reduce our frustrations, in this sun-whipped desert world of obstacles and lacks. Perhaps, done well, such an approach to life remains promising. But the life of sand and strife is not the one most readers find themselves in. While you likely face struggle and loss in many areas of your life, in many others you may find yourself with the opposite problem: verdant choice, abundant options, a forest of berries and wild game ready to be delivered to your apartment for a small fee, or for free if you had calculated that a subscription to a delivery service would save you money. Where a big self was once frustrated by the bounds of the world’s options, a small self is now overwhelmed by those options’ oceanic expanse, in which desire is the only compass that might guide us. Wanting is what differentiates an otherwise canvaslike horizon of azure into arrows, into the trade routes and adventures one might take.