[thevania]

interesting, i never understood the concept of "want"-ing anything

the last time i can remember that i wanted something was when i was a little kid and i wanted a toy radio, my mum bought it for me and later got "problems" at home because of that as we were poor and it was "expensive", after that i felt bad for wanting it

that was the last time i can remember i ever wanted anything

similar for goals - when i was a teenager i set an ambitious goal for myself to get a prestigious industry certification before finishing high-school, i thought that it will make me happy, but the moment i achieved it - i felt exactly nothing, that was the last time i set a goal for myself

not sure i am weird - but the question "what do you want" sounds silly to me, why would you want anything at all? it wont bring you happiness when you have the biggest truck or house on the street, or when you sell your company for a lot of money or when you get a professorship or whatever other goal you might set for yourself, ask yourself do you really feel joy and happiness when you get there / achieve it?

do what is right every time a situation calls for it, never take the "easy path" - this way you will never have any regrets, because you simply couldn't do more / better

reading this you might conclude then - ok that sounds like a pretty sad life - so let me add that instead of wanting things, where i found joy and happiness is in doing "good deeds" - try helping someone, make them smile, make their day better and see how will that make you feel, similarly in my professional life - i decided to focus only on what i enjoy and that is solving problems, the harder the challenge the better it makes me feel - the thrill that we are onto something and once one challenge is done i move to another and i feel again alive - that i have a purpose and couldn't possibly be more helpful / create more "good" in any other way

[piva00]

But wanting something is not limited to wanting physical things, consuming things. You might want to get better at a sport, to learn how to make pottery, want to express yourself through art, so on and so forth.

It's not weird to not want to purchase things, it's actually pretty liberating, but it's extremely unlikely that you do not have any "wants" as in things you'd like to do or achieve.

Not sure if I interpreted your comment correctly, to me it really sounded very narrowly focused on wanting "things" (as in physical products) which I don't think is the point.

[thevania]

sorry for not clear formulation

exactly as you say, you either want something physical aka want a thing, or you want to accomplish something aka a goal - be better at sport etc, that's a goal - i tried to reflect on both of these alternatives in my original comment, just to expand on that example - you don't need goals to enjoy sport, like i do a lot of running but i don't do competitive running as i don't feel the need to measure myself against others to enjoy running

in fact that's a very good point - thank you for that - i feel having goals is just a "mental trick" to push yourself in some direction, to try to create some "structure" in the unstructured world we live in, one could say a desperate try to "map" the way forward via creating some steps you can follow to happiness... aka i do this then i will be happy, i achieve this, i become better at sport, i run a marathon under X etc, and i will be happy... when i put it like this, doesn't it start to sound silly as a concept? that was the only point i tried to make