Is it worth wanting?

Look around and almost everyone is defined by something. Their job, their career, the title after their name. Or how supportive they are, how loving they are to the people in their life. And when it isn't any of that, it's a trait: they're easy-going, they really take care of themselves, they do a lot for themselves.

I don't think any of that is fake. When you sit down and ask yourself what kind of life you want, those are exactly the things that bubble up. A good career. Being someone people can lean on. Being the calm one. The answers come easily, which might be the first thing that should make us suspicious.

Because the question I keep getting stuck on isn't what I want. It's the one after it: is the thing I want actually worth wanting?

René Girard had an uncomfortable idea about this. He thought most of our desires aren't really ours to begin with. We pick them up from the people around us, the way you start wanting something because someone you admire already wants it. If he's even half right, then a lot of what bubbles up when we ask ourselves what we want is borrowed. Not wrong, necessarily. Just borrowed.

That doesn't give me an answer. It gives me a better question. When I catch myself wanting something, a role, a kind of reputation, a kind of life, I try to ask where it came from, and whether I'd still want it if I'd never seen anyone else have it.

Most days I don't know yet.