What You Want is What You Become
Tell us what you want, and we can guess where you are heading and how fulfilled you are in life.
Because intention is destiny.
From childhood, I knew someone who wanted to be rich and famous. Her brother remembers her as a child, obsessively counting the change in her piggy bank. As a single adult, she asked her accountant to give her the names of some of his wealthy single clients.
What she wanted was security and status.
Sure, she found wealth and fame, but sadly, she also suffered from loneliness and a sense of purposelessness.
So, how do we change our intentions and change our lives?
How do we find the true north for a healthy want?
How do we align our intentions with our inner guidance system, the soul?
Such a process of awakening comes when we see that each motive as,
A Mixed Stew
I’ve yet to meet a pure motive.
The Apostle Paul gives a summary of the polar extremes of character.
Best case scenario: “Love is patient and kind.”
Worst case scenario: “Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.” It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing.”
The good news is that less-than-stellar wants often lead to pain.
And this is where the no pain no change kicks in.
When I stew with envy, I always look over my shoulder at the person I perceive to “have it all.”
In so doing, I don’t run my own race and cripple my best capabilities.
Our wants shift and change depending on where we are in life and the choices we make. Each motivation is,
Based on Needs
Compassion is indicated when we review mixed motives in ourselves and others.
Consider Maslow’s pyramid depicting a hierarchy of human needs.
He describes five levels of motivation. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, we have physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualization.
Ask a person at the bottom of the pyramid what they want. The likely answer is “food for my family and a roof over my head.”
The income-challenged person will work two jobs, forgo personal agendas like education, and seek community resources like low-income housing and food banks.
Ask me what I wanted after a painful divorce. I would have told you “love and belonging.”
That need was so overwhelming that I went for a quick fix relationship. As a result I sacrificed a more mature and mutually nurturing relationship. It was only after I graduated from that school of hard knocks that I chose and was led to (more this really) the most satisfying relationship of the past few decades.
Needs to shape our choices. They drive behavior and operate like blinders that can preclude other, more self-actualizing agendas.
But needs don’t determine destiny. We are always,
Open to Growth
Pain happens when our higher needs, like contribution and a life purpose clamor for our attention.
I read of a high-powered corporate attorney who burned out in his eighty-hour-a-week, stress-filled, and profoundly unsatisfying life.
In a moment of clarity, he concluded that he wanted a life with a deeper connection with nature, quality time with his family, and an opportunity to develop his growing spiritual appetite.
So he and his wife moved the family to a small rural town where he opened a low-key law practice, learned to fly fish with his children, and took time to develop deeper relationships in the community.
Discernment Needed
The core of discernment is that before we jump to action, we need to ask, “What do I love”?
Getting to the heart of our desires involves the longest journey of all. One from our heads to our hearts, the seat of our love.
There was a time when I really loved my work. I found it deeply fulfilling to empower leaders to inspire their teams, develop others, and contribute more to the world.
But then came the aging process where I started to dislike travel, long for a quiet, more reflective life, and create more writing opportunities.
My growing wants to set off the expulsive power of a new affection.
And what I wanted slowly happened.
The change did not come in one eureka moment. It was a step-by-step process where I took risks (lower income), stumbled in the dark (my crystal ball was lost at the cleaners), learned from the agony and ecstasy of writing, and started to allow my natural surroundings to be my spiritual teacher.
But all in all, the source of all wanting and loving is through a direct knowing with the mystery called God, the ground of my being.
That’s where I’m from, the stream of eternal consciousness in which I live, move, and have my being. And that’s where I’m heading in the next life.
