So, what do YOU really want?

One day you find a lamp – not a modern one – a very old, oil lamp. You smile to yourself and think: “Why not?” You rub the lamp, and to your surprise, a Genie comes out. He looks left, then right, then behind him, and finally at you. He says:

– A deal is a deal: you freed me, so I will grant your wish. Just one, because I’m in a hurry.

Right, he probably sat in that lamp a long time and doesn’t want to waste any more of it. You open your mouth to answer, but then the Genie goes on:

– Just don’t ask for money, things, fame, love, and stuff like that. It has to be something just for you.

You should know this, right? It’s somewhere in your head. You search every corner of it, racing through your thoughts, but it turns out you find nothing.

. . . . . . .

I treated this like a puzzle to solve: I thought harder, made lists, and so on. I still haven’t cracked it – but I did learn a few things that may work better than what I tried before.

Today we have more options than anyone in history: more jobs, places to visit, experiences. A sea of choices. And yet all of it makes me feel less… free? But you probably already know that modern life can feel like too much.

Thinking harder about it just doesn’t work

When you ask yourself what you want, the answer usually comes from the part of the brain that chases things. But chasing something and enjoying it are two different systems, and they don’t always agree.

Kent Berridge studied the split between wanting (being pulled toward a thing) and liking (the pleasure of having it). They feel like one feeling, but in the brain they run on a slightly different “chemistry”.

Different brain mechanisms seem to mediate wanting and liking for the same reward.
— Kent Berridge

Look around and find a thing you really wanted: you waited, you saved, and finally you bought it. Maybe it’s sitting in a corner now, gathering dust; it gives only a shadow of that old craving, or maybe nothing at all. What pushed you to get the thing is not the same as what gives you joy. In one study, mice with extra dopamine worked harder to get sugar – but they didn’t like it any more than before. Of course, these are just mice, not people, but maybe it’s worth asking whether some of your bigger wants work the same way.

A lie told a thousand times becomes our own

We may think some things are “ours” only because we were around them a lot. Or because they looked good in other people’s eyes.

If we are around something many times, we’re more likely to start liking it (e.g. ads work this way). How many of our tastes did we really choose, and how many did we just soak up?

The second thing is that we keep comparing ourselves to an endless paper roll of other people’s best moments. That makes our quiet little voice even harder to hear.

Take the music we listen to e.g: how much of it do we play because kids at school played it? How much of it is maybe seen as good taste in your group, so you listen to it too? Maybe you have some tracks you put on and sing to alone in the car, but you’d be too embarrassed to admit to others that you listen to them?
Today, with this new knowledge, I ruthlessly cut half of my Spotify music that didn’t pass these rules.

Reading this, you probably also thought that too much choice can freeze us too. But this famous theory, after a deeper dig, turned out to be not so clear-cut when people tried to repeat it in studies.

Turn down the noise

Boring advice – leave more empty space: a walk without headphones, waiting in a line where you don’t reach for your phone. It’s more about making space than about healing some wound. The quiet that lets you look inward gets its “shift” only when your attention isn’t turned outward.

(By the way, you’ve probably heard that willpower works like a muscle that wears out over the day. Sadly, that theory didn’t hold up – the biggest test of this effect found a value close to zero.)

What do you do when no one is watching?

In quantum physics there was a very interesting study showing that the “observer” alone affects matter (the wave started acting like a particle). It loosely made me think that on the big scale it’s the same :) A lot of our wants are really a wish for how a thing looks in other people’s eyes.

So let’s flip the question and instead of “what do I want?” ask:

• What would I spend a free afternoon on if no one would ever find out?
• What did I do this week that I didn’t photograph or tell anyone about?

When those needs [autonomy, competence, relatedness] are met, the research showed, people tend to be more self- motivated, feel more satisfied, and experience greater well-being. By contrast, when people are motivated to act because of external pressures – or internal pressure to live up to external expectations – they have more trouble staying engaged and feel less fulfilled.
— Kirsten Weir, “Self-determination theory: A quarter century of human motivation research”

Luke, follow the energy

…not the interest. Interest often tells us what caught our attention. But some things make you feel alive – and others leave you cold or even strangely empty. Building on what came before, if you did or got something and feel nothing, or you move right on to the next thing – that was a sign of wanting, not liking. Wanting a thing isn’t the problem by itself. The problem is following a want without knowing which kind it is.

Of course, spending time on something doesn’t automatically mean it’s “yours”. E.g. mindless scrolling pulls your attention hard but leaves you drained.

It won’t come on its own

Let’s say we’ve made space for our inner little voice and we wait. Sadly, wise people say the answer won’t show up on its own (I won’t lie, I was hoping it would). Ugh, you still have to actively try new things and explore. Maybe you’ve heard that the most self-assured people are the ones who stayed undecided the longest. But it turns out the ones most sure of themselves are more often those who first looked into the matter widely before they chose.

There’s also another trap, so-called “borrowed certainty.” It can look like clarity and last for years, until a gap finally catches up with you – and you see that you’re living by rules you never really thought through.

When we see options one after another, we keep imagining “something a bit better” just around the corner. When people meet choices one at a time, they tend to imagine the next option will be better. Maybe we’re not short on decisiveness – maybe we’re just holding a seat for the illusion?

Maybe not knowing isn’t a problem to fix at all?

Maybe some kind of midlife crisis is already catching up with me, since I think and write about such things. But whatever.

Wise heads say that weaker self-knowledge usually goes hand in hand with more anxiety and indecision (but maybe it’s a loop that feeds itself?).

Maybe sometimes this emptiness isn’t a problem at all, and treating it like a problem is a trap in itself? Maybe sometimes not knowing is simply time: a turning point, a stage in life where the answer isn’t ready yet?

After reading this, you might fall into yet another trap and start asking yourself: am I noticing the right things? Is this a sign of wanting or liking? Am I drifting or discovering? Just being aware of this can turn it into one more thing you have to get right. While writing this article, I kept asking myself whether I’m writing it mainly for me or for the readers.