Wanting is critical. What you want is inconsequential. The wanting itself is the natural pull of evolution and authenticity—it’s life force. But the specific thing you want is just a strategy, one of ten or twenty possible strategies, and there’s no reason to attach to it.
The practical move is to follow your wanting and watch how both the wanting and what you want change over time. Goals shift, then disappear, then specific goals return, and eventually there’s just a movement toward living principled because you know that will make you happier than any specific goal.
Joe illustrates with his godson: a teenager who stole $50 and vaped in class wasn’t lacking ambition—he was ambitious in a direction his father couldn’t see. The father wanted to improve the son’s ambition; Joe saw the authentic ambition already present and followed it. The kid ended up eagerly planning how to earn money for what he actually wanted.
“Wanting is critical. What you want is really inconsequential.”
Related Concepts
- Wanting is aliveness
- Goals generate questions, not destinations
- Craving versus wanting
- Exploration not achievement is the real urge underneath potential anxiety