Understanding the Power of Intentional Desire
“The best thing is to want what is right and not to stray from the path.” –Seneca
In today’s world of endless options and constant distractions, most people spend their lives pursuing goals they never consciously chose. This comprehensive guide explores how to identify your authentic desires and create a life of genuine fulfillment rather than blind ambition.
Why Your Desires Define Your Life
The Problem with Default Desires
Our modern world programs us with wants we never consciously selected. Between advertisements, social media, and cultural expectations, we often find ourselves:
- Chasing status symbols that don’t bring happiness
- Pursuing careers that drain our energy
- Comparing ourselves to unrealistic standards
- Feeling perpetually dissatisfied despite external success
The truth is simple yet profound: you are what you want. Your desires create channels through which your energy automatically flows, determining your path of least resistance in life.
The Hidden Cost of Unexamined Wants
When we blindly follow our impulses, we become slaves to:
- Biological programming – primitive drives for food, sex, and immediate gratification
- Cultural conditioning – society’s definitions of success and happiness
- Marketing manipulation – advertisers exploiting our insecurities
- Social comparison – keeping up with peers rather than pursuing authentic goals
As Proust famously observed: “To think that I’ve wasted years of my life, that I’ve longed to die, that I’ve experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn’t appeal to me, who wasn’t even my type!”
The Science Behind Changing Your Desires
Why Reprogramming Your Wants Works
Research in psychology and neuroscience confirms what ancient philosophers knew: habits shape desires, and desires shape lives. When you deliberately practice new behaviors, you literally rewire your brain’s reward systems.
The process works through:
- Neuroplasticity – your brain’s ability to form new neural pathways
- Habit formation – repeated actions becoming automatic
- Identity shift – your sense of self adapting to your consistent behaviors
- Reward reconditioning – finding pleasure in previously neutral activities
The Wu-Wei Principle: Natural Action
Ancient Chinese philosophy introduced the concept of wu-wei – effortless action that flows naturally from who you are. The Confucian path demonstrates this progression:
- Age 15: Setting your mind on learning
- Age 30: Taking your place in society
- Age 40: Freedom from doubts
- Age 50: Understanding your purpose
- Age 60: Attuned perception
- Age 70: Following your heart without transgressing proper boundaries
While few reach this ultimate state, every step toward aligning your wants with your values brings greater peace and effectiveness.
How to Discover What You Actually Want
Method 1: Direct Experience Over Imagination
Our imagination fails us when predicting what will make us happy. The solution? Bias toward action and experimentation.
The Power of Experimentation
Instead of endless analysis, try things out:
Career uncertainty? Take on freelance projects, volunteer in the field, or shadow professionals before committing to major changes.
Lifestyle questions? Temporarily adopt the routine you’re considering. Want to be a morning person? Try it for 30 days before judging.
Relationship decisions? Spend extended time with potential partners in various contexts – stress, leisure, work, play.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson noted: “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Developing Your Internal Scorecard
Warren Buffett poses a revealing question: “Would you rather be the world’s greatest lover, but have everyone think you’re the world’s worst lover? Or would you rather be the world’s worst lover but have everyone think you’re the world’s greatest lover?”
Your answer reveals whether you’re living by an internal or external scorecard.
External scorecards measure success by:
- Others’ opinions
- Social media metrics
- Salary and titles
- Public recognition
Internal scorecards measure success by:
- Personal growth
- Alignment with values
- Quality of relationships
- Contribution to others
Method 2: Curating Your Community
“It’s easier to rebel when it feels like an act of conformity.” –Adam Grant
The principle of mimetic desire means we naturally want what those around us want. Rather than fighting this tendency, use it strategically.
Choosing Communities That Shape Positive Desires
Your peer group profoundly influences your wants. Consider:
If you want to prioritize health: Join fitness communities, attend wellness workshops, befriend active people.
If you want financial independence: Connect with frugal-living communities, read financial independence forums, spend time with thoughtful investors.
If you want creative expression: Attend workshops, join artist collectives, surround yourself with makers and creators.
The CrossFit Success Formula
CrossFit’s explosive growth reveals the power of community in shaping desire. Members don’t just want fitness – they want to be part of a tribe with:
- Clear standards of excellence
- Shared vocabulary and rituals
- Public recognition systems (leaderboards)
- Mutual accountability and support
You can apply this formula to any area of life.
Practical Strategies for Reprogramming Your Desires
Direct Experience Tactics
- Prioritize action over abstraction – Commit to aligned behaviors before feeling motivated. Motivation follows action, not the other way around.
- Create habit chains – String together small actions. It’s only after your 20th cold shower that you might begin to enjoy them.
- Practice meditation – Create distance between “you” and your impulses, reducing reactive behavior.
- Seek flow states – Immerse yourself in challenging activities that demand full attention.
- Practice strategic deprivation – Temporarily eliminate habitual comforts (sugar, caffeine, social media) to discover how malleable your desires are.
- Use the observer technique – Imagine someone you respect watching you. This focuses attention powerfully on your actions.
- Stream-of-consciousness journaling – Write non-stop for 20 minutes to externalize and examine your thoughts about desires.
- Set clear measurements – Define specific metrics for each experiment so you can evaluate results objectively.
Community Cultivation Tactics
- Audit your five communities – List five groups you’re part of and five desires each cultivates in members.
- Date for alignment – Your partner massively influences your wants. Ensure they share or support what you want to want.
- Explore spiritual communities – Even non-believers benefit from the value systems and support structures churches provide.
- Form intentional brotherhoods – Create small groups explicitly committed to mutual growth and accountability.
- List your top relationships – Identify the five people you most and least enjoy spending time with. Understand why, and adjust accordingly.
- Cut toxic connections – Some relationships consistently pull you toward unwanted desires. It’s okay to create distance.
- Read strategically – Choose books aligned with who you want to become, especially biographies that provide historical mentors.
- Track contextual wants – Notice how your desires shift around different people, revealing their influence.
Living Intentionally in a Culture of Distraction
The Anomie Problem
We live in an era of “normlessness” – unclear standards and endless options creating anxiety and rootlessness. This mirrors the crisis faced by ancient Romans, which gave birth to Stoic philosophy.
Seneca observed in his time: “If you ask one of them as he comes out of a house, ‘Where are you going? What do you have in mind?’ he will reply, ‘I really don’t know; but I’ll see some people, I’ll do something.’ They wander around aimlessly looking for employment, and they do not what they intended but what they happen to run across.”
Sound familiar? This “busy idleness” characterizes modern life for many.
Swimming Upstream Without Leaving the Stream
The solution isn’t complete withdrawal from society. As Pope Francis notes: “Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way.”
You can maintain authentic desires while engaging with mainstream culture by:
- Understanding where others’ wants come from without adopting them
- Having compassion for those trapped in default desires
- Being patient with yourself during times you can’t swim against the current
- Finding like-minded communities that create a supportive slipstream
The Bus Parable
Anthony de Mello offers this powerful image:
“A group of tourists sits in a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country; lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers. But the shades of the bus are pulled down. They do not have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. And all the time of their journey is spent squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered.”
Most people spend their entire lives fighting for status on the bus, never opening the shades to see the magnificent landscape passing by.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “what do you want to want” mean?
It means examining your desires consciously rather than accepting them by default. It’s the difference between wanting something because society told you to versus wanting it because it genuinely aligns with your values and brings fulfillment.
How long does it take to change your desires?
Confucius measured progress in decades, not days. Small shifts can happen within weeks, but deep reprogramming of habitual desires often requires years of consistent practice. However, every step brings immediate benefits.
Can you really change what you want?
Yes. Neuroscience confirms that repeated behaviors literally rewire your brain’s reward systems. What feels difficult initially can become your natural preference with consistent practice.
How do I know if a desire is truly mine or socially conditioned?
Pay attention to your direct experience rather than imagination. Try things out. If you feel energized and aligned during the activity (not just after imagining success), it’s more likely authentic.
What if my authentic desires conflict with practical needs?
Start small. You don’t need to quit your job immediately. Begin experiments on the side, gradually shifting toward alignment. Most authentic desires can be integrated with practical life through creativity.
Is it selfish to focus on what I want?
No. People living from authentic desire are more energized, generous, and positive influences on others. Pursuing false wants leads to resentment and depletion.
How do I handle family or friends who don’t support my authentic desires?
Seek communities that do support them. You don’t need to cut off family, but find additional support systems. Sometimes demonstrating your transformation inspires others to examine their own wants.
What if I don’t know what I want?
Start with experiments. Try different activities, communities, and lifestyles. Pay attention to when you feel most alive and engaged. Your authentic desires will reveal themselves through direct experience.
Taking Action: Your Next Steps
The journey from default desires to authentic wants begins with a single question: What do I want to want?
Here’s how to start:
- This week: Spend 30 minutes journaling about your current major goals. For each one, ask: “Do I want this, or do I want to want this?” Notice the difference.
- This month: Choose one small experiment. If you think you want to be healthier, commit to one new health practice for 30 days and observe your actual experience.
- This quarter: Audit your communities. Identify one group pulling you toward unwanted desires and one that supports authentic ones. Adjust your time accordingly.
- This year: Develop one internal scorecard metric. Instead of measuring success by others’ opinions, create a personal standard aligned with your values.
Conclusion: Opening the Shades
“Count no man happy until the end is known.” –Solon
The tragedy is spending your entire life succeeding at the wrong game – achieving society’s goals while neglecting your own authentic path.
The opportunity is profound: By asking what you want to want, experimenting with direct experience, and surrounding yourself with supportive communities, you can progressively align your default desires with your deepest values.
You can open the shades on the bus and finally see the beautiful landscape you’ve been traveling through all along.
The bickering over status fades when you discover what genuinely matters. The anxiety dissolves when you stop comparing yourself to others’ games.
And like Confucius in his later years, you may eventually reach a point where you naturally want what you want to want – where your spontaneous impulses align perfectly with your considered values.
That’s not just success. That’s freedom.
What do you want to want?
Ready to dive deeper? This guide provides the foundation, but sustained transformation requires consistent practice and reflection. Consider joining communities of others on this journey, or working with mentors who’ve successfully aligned their desires with their values.
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