It’s an easy thing to answer; what do you want? Everyone wants something. Most people want more than one thing. A few want a seemingly endless list of stuff, fulfilled dreams and fairytale endings. But do you know why you want what you want?
Consider this. A relationship ends, and you pine and pine and pine for your lost love. You feel as though you’d do anything to get them back. In this technological age we can never fully leave someone behind. It’s almost impossible not to see their presence somewhere; facebook, twitter, emails, the endless number of apps on our phones and tablets. The process of grieving for a lost love, the one who got away, and eventually the realisation that you’re finally over it, can take what seems like forever. Some people never find their way through. Is this a side effect of our technological advances? If someone is never really out of sight, how can they be out of mind? Rewind the clock thirty years and you may well find that pining doesn’t extend to further pining followed by even more pining, and that instead we wallow in self pity for a while, then a friend drags us out to a pub, we have some fun and we move the heck on with our lives.
When our loveruns screaming for the hills in a blind panic walks away in the opposite direction do we miss the real person or the ideal version of them which, let’s be honest, becomes even more ideal when time passes and we conveniently forget the pain they caused in the first place. And they probably did. No one’s perfect. No one. No, not even me.
If we can give ourselves time to understand why we want the things and/or people we want, figure out which things are real needs and which are fantasies, we might have a fighting chance of succeeding.
I know why I want the things I want. I have a list (not a physical list, although it’s a miracle; I make lists about lists!). I know what’s achievable and what isn’t. I know what I need to do (most of the time). I know who can help me and how. I know the timescales I have in mind to achieve what I want. In some cases I know what the final goal is but with no idea how to get there, but I also know it will come to me eventually. I know that if I don’t achieve what I set out to do that I’ll be disappointed, and I know that in most cases that will be down to me and no one else, but I’ll get over it and move on, or I’ll try again… and again… and again…
Do I want my lost love? Sometimes I do, but then something happens to make me remember why he’s lost and why he’ll remain that way, and normal service can resume, for a while at least.
Do I want to find a new love? Yes. I wasn’t built to be lonely; most of us aren’t. I’m attempting to do something about it but I can only do so much, and I’m painfully aware of that fact. Am I tired of hearing that “it will happen when you least expect it”, “he’s just around the corner” and “you should try speed dating”? Dear god, yes! Am I likely to slap with a soggy haddock the next person to sincerely say any of the above or variations thereof? It’s a distinct possibility. Will I stop looking? No. I wasn’t built to be lonely.
Do I want my own family? At 39 years old while watching the egg timer drain away the last grains of my fertility? Yes, I always have. Will I be content instead to teach my nieces everything I can, to watch them grow into the incredible people I know they’ll be, and be there when they run away from home waiting with hugs, chocolate, pizza, girly movies, and make sneaky phone calls to their mums and dads when they’re not in earshot so I can still be their cool Auntie Kirsty? You betcha!
Do I want to figure out what, once and for all, I want as my career? Of course I do, but I know the job I have now is good, reasonably well paid, with fabulous colleagues and a boss who stands up for her employees even if she knows she can’t change something. Will I figure out what I want to do before it’s too late and I’m too old to be employed in a new area? I haven’t the faintest idea. All I know is I want to help people, I just don’t know how (and before some of you say it, I’m really not cut out to be a nurse!). I want to work at something every day that makes a real difference to people’s lives, and I want to take the fabulous feeling home with me every night, the one that tells me my short time in this life has meant something to people whether I know them or not.
Do I want to lose the rest of the weight I need to lose before I’m considered healthy? Absolutely! Is it difficult? Unless you’ve experienced the long, hard slog you have no idea just how difficult. In twelve months I’ve stayed almost (cough) the same weight when I know I could have already reached my goal with motivation and determination. I know I became lazy and started taking things for granted. I also know that the motivation and determination I need in order to achieve this will come to me in a flash, and I may not even realise it’s happened until weeks later when my trousers start to fall down! I know I’ll do it because I have no choice.
Do I want to move into a flat on my own? Darn tootin’, I do! Do I worry about how I’ll cope with my arachnophobia? Yes. Oh yes. Will it stop me from moving? Are you feckin’ kidding me??? The joy of walking into an empty kitchen and baking when I want, of getting up on a weekend and not lying there listening, waiting for the shower to be free, of having everything I put down still be there when I return to it and not ‘tidied away’ (suddenly lost)? This. This is my first goal, and it’s the one I know I’ll realise before all else.
I want more. I do want more, but these are the big important things I want more than anything else. These are the things that, for me, are worth fighting for and working towards. I’ll keep on keeping on because there’s nothing else I can do. What remains if I don’t? The lazy, sedentary, depressive, unfit waste of a person I used to be. She hasn’t been here for a long time and she’s never coming back, I can guarantee that much even if I don’t succeed with my list.
We can all achieve what we want to achieve if we understand what we want and why. Quitting smoking, quitting drinking, retraining in a new job, emigrating, learning to dance, singing on a stage, starting a business, making all our own Christmas decorations… we can achieve anything. Yes, that last one is on my list, too!
So the only question left is this…
What do you want?
Consider this. A relationship ends, and you pine and pine and pine for your lost love. You feel as though you’d do anything to get them back. In this technological age we can never fully leave someone behind. It’s almost impossible not to see their presence somewhere; facebook, twitter, emails, the endless number of apps on our phones and tablets. The process of grieving for a lost love, the one who got away, and eventually the realisation that you’re finally over it, can take what seems like forever. Some people never find their way through. Is this a side effect of our technological advances? If someone is never really out of sight, how can they be out of mind? Rewind the clock thirty years and you may well find that pining doesn’t extend to further pining followed by even more pining, and that instead we wallow in self pity for a while, then a friend drags us out to a pub, we have some fun and we move the heck on with our lives.
When our love
If we can give ourselves time to understand why we want the things and/or people we want, figure out which things are real needs and which are fantasies, we might have a fighting chance of succeeding.
I know why I want the things I want. I have a list (not a physical list, although it’s a miracle; I make lists about lists!). I know what’s achievable and what isn’t. I know what I need to do (most of the time). I know who can help me and how. I know the timescales I have in mind to achieve what I want. In some cases I know what the final goal is but with no idea how to get there, but I also know it will come to me eventually. I know that if I don’t achieve what I set out to do that I’ll be disappointed, and I know that in most cases that will be down to me and no one else, but I’ll get over it and move on, or I’ll try again… and again… and again…
Do I want my lost love? Sometimes I do, but then something happens to make me remember why he’s lost and why he’ll remain that way, and normal service can resume, for a while at least.
Do I want to find a new love? Yes. I wasn’t built to be lonely; most of us aren’t. I’m attempting to do something about it but I can only do so much, and I’m painfully aware of that fact. Am I tired of hearing that “it will happen when you least expect it”, “he’s just around the corner” and “you should try speed dating”? Dear god, yes! Am I likely to slap with a soggy haddock the next person to sincerely say any of the above or variations thereof? It’s a distinct possibility. Will I stop looking? No. I wasn’t built to be lonely.
Do I want my own family? At 39 years old while watching the egg timer drain away the last grains of my fertility? Yes, I always have. Will I be content instead to teach my nieces everything I can, to watch them grow into the incredible people I know they’ll be, and be there when they run away from home waiting with hugs, chocolate, pizza, girly movies, and make sneaky phone calls to their mums and dads when they’re not in earshot so I can still be their cool Auntie Kirsty? You betcha!
Do I want to figure out what, once and for all, I want as my career? Of course I do, but I know the job I have now is good, reasonably well paid, with fabulous colleagues and a boss who stands up for her employees even if she knows she can’t change something. Will I figure out what I want to do before it’s too late and I’m too old to be employed in a new area? I haven’t the faintest idea. All I know is I want to help people, I just don’t know how (and before some of you say it, I’m really not cut out to be a nurse!). I want to work at something every day that makes a real difference to people’s lives, and I want to take the fabulous feeling home with me every night, the one that tells me my short time in this life has meant something to people whether I know them or not.
Do I want to lose the rest of the weight I need to lose before I’m considered healthy? Absolutely! Is it difficult? Unless you’ve experienced the long, hard slog you have no idea just how difficult. In twelve months I’ve stayed almost (cough) the same weight when I know I could have already reached my goal with motivation and determination. I know I became lazy and started taking things for granted. I also know that the motivation and determination I need in order to achieve this will come to me in a flash, and I may not even realise it’s happened until weeks later when my trousers start to fall down! I know I’ll do it because I have no choice.
Do I want to move into a flat on my own? Darn tootin’, I do! Do I worry about how I’ll cope with my arachnophobia? Yes. Oh yes. Will it stop me from moving? Are you feckin’ kidding me??? The joy of walking into an empty kitchen and baking when I want, of getting up on a weekend and not lying there listening, waiting for the shower to be free, of having everything I put down still be there when I return to it and not ‘tidied away’ (suddenly lost)? This. This is my first goal, and it’s the one I know I’ll realise before all else.
I want more. I do want more, but these are the big important things I want more than anything else. These are the things that, for me, are worth fighting for and working towards. I’ll keep on keeping on because there’s nothing else I can do. What remains if I don’t? The lazy, sedentary, depressive, unfit waste of a person I used to be. She hasn’t been here for a long time and she’s never coming back, I can guarantee that much even if I don’t succeed with my list.
We can all achieve what we want to achieve if we understand what we want and why. Quitting smoking, quitting drinking, retraining in a new job, emigrating, learning to dance, singing on a stage, starting a business, making all our own Christmas decorations… we can achieve anything. Yes, that last one is on my list, too!
So the only question left is this…
What do you want?
