Getting what you want
Electro-voltaic and magnetic! Who says you can’t have it all?
In the third season of AMC’s Mad Men, ad exec and perpetual little boy Pete Campbell whines to his wife after an insufficient promotion, “Why can’t I get anything good all at once?”
It’s an attitude I can relate to…and probably many other people throughout history, considering we have proverbs like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” and other colloquial exhortations to be grateful. Still, sometimes we want what we want, when we want it. What then?
In exploring my own inner world and working with many people over the years, I have observed that this kind of attitude has a lot less to do with what we want; rather, it’s the result of a habit of dissatisfaction. If you’ve spent your whole life wanting more, you’re not going to stop. “More” is a destination that, by definition, you cannot reach. It’s the carrot that keeps you going, always dangling just a few inches in front of your face. Or, to use a more elegant metaphor that doesn’t make you a mule, it’s the territory just over the horizon.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than you have, but it is usually incompatible with being pleased with what you have. We must generally make a choice between ambition and satisfaction. This might be cyclical — we go through a period of striving followed by a period of contentment — or our quest for betterment might be lifelong pursuit. Whatever path we take, we’ll be much happier if we are clear about our intentions.
The problem arises when we are unhappy with our position but haven’t noticed that we already have that which we are seeking. This is the popular kid at school who thinks she has no friends, the accomplished scholar who constantly compares his academic achievements to those of others, or the wealthy business person who feels little sense of financial security. In each case, the person achieved a goal without noticing, and now has neither satisfaction nor an energizing north star. It’s just more time on the highway, headed in the same direction but with no destination. The exit was a few miles back.
To prevent this problem or solve it, we need to be more specific about how we will measure what we want. Instead of thinking “I want more friends,” or “I want to be popular,” the teenager should identify a clear metric (Getting invited to parties with a certain group of people? Having an intimate conversation with a trusted confidant? Being voted prom queen?) and steer directly toward that. Rather than seeking more power, status, or money, we must look for a definable marker of success. Otherwise, how will we know when we get there?
Exploring our deeply-held desires may surprise us. We may realize that we need, say, exactly $159,000 per year to maintain the exact life we want. We may discover that we’ve been searching for romantic partners when what we really want is a business partner, or vice versa. We may decide that we want to spend all of our time gardening, which means that we will find a job that will allow us to work a minimal amount. Or we may realize that we’re not going to stop until we reach Mars.
Once we know what we want, we can design our life around it. As we do, we’ll discover tradeoffs. We probably can’t “get anything good all at once.” But it’s better to figure this out ahead of time, isn’t it? We’ll know exactly why we’re frustrated and what we might do to fix it if we wanted to change gears. Or we can accept the consequences of the choices we’ve already made and make peace with them. We might realize that we aren’t willing to deal with the tradeoffs that would be required to achieve a particular goal.
If you feel unsatisfied, it might be because you don’t have what you want. However, it might be because you don’t know what you want — or even because you don’t realize that you already have what you want. Take the time to figure it out, and you will have more joy in your life. That’s a condition that can be present regardless of your circumstances.