Learning to Live By What You Want, Not What You Should Want

I was recently offered a “great” professional opportunity. A gig that just about anyone in my field would want. There was one problem, however: I didn’t want it.

When I was originally offered the position I said “yes” immediately. It was, a “no-brainer” with all the acroutements of success we’ve been taught to value and desire. “Wow” was the only response I received when mentioning it to others.

Six months later, having just returned from a long schedule of traveling and teaching, I was exhausted, physically, emotionally, and mentally. As I started to prepare for the new job, I felt a heavy sensation in my chest and a hollowness in my gut; I was weepy for seemingly no reason.

An all-too-familiar split had returned, between what my mind told me I should want and what my body actually wanted. It felt as if I had to do this job regardless of if I wanted to or not; the same words looped inside my head, “You should do this; you should want this; it’s the perfect job.” My body had been bullied out of the conversation, as it had so many times in my life; my inner should gestapo was back in charge.

And so, trying to respect my own exhaustion (and practice what I teach), I reached out to the program director and explained my situation. I was bone tired from running around the country speaking, teaching, meeting people, and creating material, and I didn’t think more travel and work sounded wise or like what I needed.

As lovely as the setting, accommodations, food, compensation, students and staff were, and indeed they were, I was “not sure” I could take care of myself and also accept this opportunity. I needed rest and replenishment, to step off the treadmill of doing, offering, and being the teacher; I needed to rest and have an opportunity to just be.

That said, she did what all good program directors do and explained all the reasons I should do the job even though I didn’t feel like I wanted it or maybe even physically could do the job. She laid out all the incredible perks, how easy the schedule and travel would be, and why so many teachers would covet this spot.

She also made the case for why this experience would provide exactly the nourishment, rest, and replenishment I needed, wisely turning my wanting on its head. While this job didn’t seem like what I wanted or needed, and in fact seemed like the antithesis of it, the end result would be exactly what I wanted and needed. Ultimately, I would be so glad I took the opportunity and so glad I didn’t listen to myself.

For a few days I felt stymied. I’d taken in her words and was back in a should mode, telling myself it was a great opportunity that I’d be crazy to pass up. The tapes had started playing again in my head: “I should, I should, I should…” I knew I was caught but didn’t know how to get un-caught.

But then I remembered to shift the question. Rather than ask myself if this was a job everyone would want, I asked if this was a job I wanted. Rather than reminding myself that this was a great opportunity for everyone, I asked if this was a great opportunity for me. Just that simple shift in curiosity opened the door to freedom.

In getting curious about and acknowledging my own experience, not just everyone else’s experience, and not just what I’d been taught I should be experiencing, I was able to get clear, reenter my life, and realign with my true self.

The truth—for me, which I later reiterated to the program director, this time with clarity and strength—was that I wished that I wanted and needed this opportunity; if that were true, it would make life a whole lot easier in many ways. And yet, it was not my experience, not what in reality I wanted or needed at this moment in my life.

I acknowledged that she was right, most people would want this job; it was a great opportunity; it was an easy gig, but I also created a space between that inarguable truth and the truth of whether I, this human being at this moment in time wanted this job, if it was a great opportunity and easy—for me. And so we left it with there. Both and… both those truths were true and both deserved respect.

There are so many things we’re taught to want, things that we should value, respect, and need, that are supposed to make us happy and satisfy us. And yet, so often, what we should want (in theory) is not what we do want. Making that distinction and respecting it is critical to living an authentic life.

There are many reasons we’re conditioned to want what we want, but that’s a topic for another day. What you should want, the external guidelines for what should make you happy, are not the same (and often very different) from what you do want and what does make you happy.

Discovering what you want and need is an internal process, one that only you have access to. Trusting your own wanting is the path home to yourself, to your power and wisdom—to the best of you, a life that’s in alignment and will satisfy you. Living by what you want is, ultimately, what you want.