What Do You Truly Want?
¿Qué es lo que verdaderamente deseas?
A question about how to work with the feeling that something is missing in one's life, and how to navigate the tension between acceptance and creative aspiration.
What Do You Truly Want?
A question about how to work with the feeling that something is missing in one's life, and how to navigate the tension between acceptance and creative aspiration.
What advice do you have in terms of methodology for working with this?
Two things. First, whenever you have the sense that your life is not right, that something is missing, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You could fall into a dichotomy where you tell yourself, "No, my life is okay, I don't need to do anything." And then you amputate the vital force of creativity.
On the other hand, look at how your life may be more beautiful than you can imagine. And it's not your life. That's where it becomes life, existence, the miracle of this. And that is in complete harmony with creativity, meaning infinite possibilities.
Going deeper into what we truly want
The other point is that it really matters to go deeper and deeper into what we truly want. It could be really simple. That's where the work is. There is an inner integrity around how we fool ourselves. Maybe I don't want that much because it's scary, because I might fail, or it might not work out, or it might bring pain. Or we might be pursuing something huge, but it's really not the deepest thing. There could be a big ambition, but it's a distraction.
So, not necessarily that moving in the direction of what you feel you want is the point. It's not the destination, it's the journey. But you're saying the journey is very important, and that you interrogate what happens along it.
Yes, exactly. Don't amputate the process that is very healthy and vital in life. Imagine the thing you want the most, and it might not be a thing. What is it that you want the most? It will feel expansive. It will feel beautiful. And it might feel scary if you contemplate moving toward it. Often, if it's scary, it's touching on something real.
At every scale of time
This works at many levels. It works on what you want right now, in the next five minutes. What you want tomorrow, or over the weekend. And then there's the level of life itself: why am I here?