How Do We Get the Things That We Want?
I’ve dove deep into this question—because ultimately, any form of self-help is trying to answer it.
How DO we get the things that we want?
How do we GET them?
HOW do we…?
Million dollar question, eh?
What do you want in this moment?
Probably something.
I want many things: a new place to live, a home with ocean views, more money, more clients, more… stuff.
I’m usually in the market for more.
It’s a tangled mind game—
Be grateful for what you have… but also, give me more.
Many Eastern philosophies are often misunderstood or dismissed in Western culture because they emphasize non-attachment, presence, and contentment with what is. They suggest that clinging to external outcomes as the source of our well-being is what causes suffering. Meditation, in part, is the practice of reversing that—of remembering our wholeness, our value, our enough-ness, now.
But I’ve grappled with that understanding since I was a kid in Catholic school. A child who was taught—explicitly or implicitly—that her preferences didn’t matter much. Gratitude, back then, felt like a silencing. A way to keep me small and obedient.
“Be grateful.”
But I don’t like this.
“Be grateful you have it.”
But I don’t want it.
And so, you can imagine when 33-year-old me was trying to turn her life around and was met with endless advice about the “attitude of gratitude,” I was… bothered.
OKAY, but I don’t like my job—stop telling me to be grateful for it!
What I came to realize was that beneath my resistance to gratitude was fear.
Fear that I wouldn’t get what I actually wanted.
Fear that “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” was all there was.
Fear that I was just a brat with pipe dreams—rude, ungrateful, and undeserving of more.
It’s kind of heavy. But it runs deep in my psyche.
And so! Friends—
As I conclude this blog, I imagine it being read in full Bridgerton fashion, the words drifting into the ether as you sip your morning tea and I dramatically narrate from afar…
I digress.
What do we do with wanting?
For starters, two things can be true.
We can be grateful and still go after what feels aligned or fulfilling.
And one thing I know for sure:
If we don’t appreciate what we have, we most definitely won’t appreciate more.
I learned this while chasing paychecks.
The more I made, the more I spent.
And the more I spent, the less it satisfied.
It’s a trope, but it’s true.
So when I’m wrestling with the guilt of not feeling grateful enough—when I start to spiral or feel like a piece of garbage for wanting more—I go to the one place that always reminds me all is well: the ocean.
It always brings me back.
Back into presence, into truth, into actual appreciation.
And every time, I remember how lucky I am to live five minutes away from my zen space.
Two things I’ll say:
You’re not a piece of garbage for wanting.
Find your version of that place—
the one that brings you back to stillness and calms the spiraling, untrue thoughts you’re harboring about yourself.
It helps. A lot.