What Do You Want?

A guide for noticing, understanding, and accepting our desires

Desire is one of the most constant forces in our lives, but it’s not as straightforward as it seems.

For years, I found myself stuck thinking about what needed to get done, what problems I should solve, or what other people expected from me. I rarely stopped to ask: What do I actually want?

Over time, I realised I wasn’t alone. Friends, family, people in therapy. So many of us live like this. And on the rare occasions when we do ask ourselves what we want, we tend to stick to the safe, ordinary, and socially acceptable answers: I want a coffee. I’d love a holiday. I wish I had a bigger place.

It’s not that these things don’t matter. They do. But they’re often surface-level, passing wants. They’re safe to think about and to reveal. The deeper ones, the ones that shape who we are and where our lives could go, tend to stay untouched and even buried. Especially when they feel inconvenient, confusing, intimidating, embarrassing, or a little dark: wanting to move far away from family, wanting freedom but also stability, wanting to be truly seen and known, wanting to be in the spotlight, wanting luxury, or wanting revenge.

Whether we notice them or not, our desires are always there. In fact, a study showed that about 75% of our waking moments are filled with some kind of desire, whether it’s a craving for a snack, a hope for connection, a flicker of curiosity, sex, or a wish for power.

So why do we avoid facing our deep desires?