When your Wishes are in Contradiction with your Hobbies
It’s funny how we can be so sure that we know what we want and at the same time have irreconcilable opposite habits.
There is one saying that I try to remind myself of every time I believe I want something and feel somewhat “off”:
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Such a simple expression, yet so powerful in its meaning. We always want what we don’t have and literally nothing is out of range for our mind.
One thing which has been on my mind for years now is my wish to live in a calm area. I have always lived in or close to a big city (the majority being capitals of the countries I lived it). Yet, I also dislike major cities for its constant mess, the overall mood of the people living there and the lack of greenery.
But it is true that I cannot deny my addiction to convenience. I love being able to have anything I want at my disposal in about an hour (at most).
In such cases, we usually go for what we call a “concession”. We accept something that doesn’t really fit our goals but somehow can be “enough”.
In my own example cited above, this could mean to go to a rather large city in province and live at its border. I could indeed enjoy both my goals in terms of place to live but neither would be fully satisfied.
Yet, life is full of choices and making a decision needs to include much more than looking at just one of its components. Moving somewhere, for instance, means that you have a job there or can work from anywhere as well.
Furthermore, you may enjoy surfing but find a good place to live which is far from the sea. How would you handle the disappearance of this habit?
Most parents try to give everything to their children. While I believe that this isn’t a bad thing in itself, it has sown the seed to make us trust that we can have almost anything in the world.
This, in turn, causes us to have difficulties making “the hard choices”. As we constantly want more, we usually unconsciously choose the easier choice since it would lead us to more options afterwards.
However, the problem with that is that it forces us to make decisions we tend to regret afterwards. Life is full of concessions but, despite making numerous every single day, we still struggle to deal with them.
I believe that one of the most important skills to acquire is how to make decisions and live with those. Pondering too much ends up making us consider aspects that shouldn’t really matter and thus regret those.
