The whole thing seems to fairly routinely rotate back toward identifying what is possible when energized by what I want.
Wait, what?
Did I miss something — like part of the conversation somehow?
Well, yeah, probably.
You see, I've had this rolling discussion with myself for years now. It comes and goes, often returning to a familiar theme — can we really just do what we want to do?
I'll often catch myself saying things like, "If I could, I would love to...". Which will inevitably be followed by something like, "Yeah, but how then will this other thing work?" Practically speaking, I often don't know how to make 'what I want' happen or I can't afford what I would lose in order to get there. So, really, I want more than one thing. And, truth be told, I need more than just one thing.
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
-- Abraham Lincoln
In the end, I actually have needs that supersede just what I might want. But, I do have to admit what I want, too, or other problems emerge. Where things seem to meet up then is the nexus between what I want and what I need — each informing the other.
The most significant factor, though, that seems to frame navigating the question still IS what I want because even what I need is largely filtered through what I want anyway. Too often, I don’t even know what is needed without the energy that comes from what I want pushing up against it. In other words, if I don’t want it, or even know that I want it, then I often don’t even detect what is needed.
For example, if I’ve grown up in the suburbs (which I did), I likely have not imagined much about the wonder and beauty and values that exist from living on a farm. I may easily assume, based on what it looks like from a neighborhood, that farms are just a lot of work. But there’s also a lot in that kind of assumption-making that is missing. Or, to back it up one step further, if I were to grow up in the city, I may not have much imagination for what it would be like to live in the suburbs, especially if I’ve never seen them.
To beg the logic of this a bit further, this might apply to many dimensions of our particular experiences with reality. We know what we know. And, we are limited by that knowing, especially when it comes to things we actually need.
So, the case I think I'm making here (to myself) is that it is more what I do with the healthy tension between my idealism and my pragmatism that matters. I can acknowledge both...and need to. Practically speaking, either / or (as in so many cases) is not realistic anyway (nor, for that matter, all that helpful).
What we want is an important kind of energy, as is acknowledgement of appropriate constraints. Energy is a source of so many things in our lives, especially in the tensions between them. It can be quite useful, in a variety of ways, to help us more fully engage these realities we face.
So, what DO I really want to do?
You are unique and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.
-- Martha Graham
