Insights

Not knowing what you want

Somebody asks what you want and you come up empty.

Somebody asks what you want and you've got nothing.

Not dodging it either. There's genuinely nothing there to grab hold of. Ask what you don't want and you can go for ten minutes. What needs fixing, what everyone else needs this week, no problem. Then it turns around and points at you and the screen just goes blank.

I went to a café once to answer this. Sat down and had no idea. I told myself I'm not moving from here until I get the answer, and then I sat there looking into a cup of coffee for a really long time. Nothing came. What finally worked wasn't asking harder what I wanted. It was asking how do I want to feel. Three or four hours and a couple more coffees and I had a list of about twelve things. I found that same list in an old diary a few years later and it was all still true.

What tends to catch people is what kind of problem this turns out to be. It's not that you've forgotten. Wanting is something you practise, and if you stopped early, because you asked for something once and watched what it did to somebody you loved and decided not to do that again, then it never really got built. A lot of us stop asking and then forget we ever wanted anything.

Which means the way back in is smaller than the question makes it sound. Not what do you want from your life. What do you want this month. Then what's the specific want inside that. Then what's the specific want inside that for you, rather than for everyone who leans on you.

That's where this all starts. The near, small, ordinary want that somebody could say no to.