Wanting what you already have

So much of life can be characterized by the pursuit of closing the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

Whatever it is that makes our inner machinery behave in this goal-oriented fashion is both awesome and cumbersome depending on which angle you view it from.

On the one end, being goal-oriented means you’re often trying to get the next thing or next set of things done to accomplish the goal you’veset. When you accomplish a goal, you’re met with a sense of delight. But that feeling is ephemeral — quickly fading away when you find the next desirable goal.

An arguably unfortunate side-effect of this, though, is that you spend very little time looking up and fully appreciating all that you’ve accomplished and attained.

Instead, it’s not unusual to feel a steady sense of deprivation fueled by thoughts of wanting to achieve more or, rose, wanting to have what someone else has. This kind of envy can seem benign — helpful even — at first but can actually become quite insidious.

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with being hungry to achieve more.

But there’s also something to be said about learning to want what you already have, so as to remind yourself while you’re pursuing the next goal that you’re not as empty or deprived as the envious side of you might have you believe.

In many instances, you’ve likely managed to attain what a past version of you once wanted.