The other day I went out to buy some stuffs and I realized something, that when I know perfectly what I want the odds are that I am going to find it, but if I am wandering around not knowing exactly what I want, I am likely to come up empty handed. It's about determination. If you know what you want, you will eventually get it. It can be a bit like going hunting, but without having to hurt anyone. If you know what animal you are looking for you will know what lure to use and what trap to set, but if you don't know what kind of animal you are hunting, you will hardly catch it. That's what I think, and I think the easy part is always getting it. The hard part where we can waste the most of our time is simply trying to figure out what we are looking for. One needs to look inward to know precisely what we want and what we are looking for, but first one needs to get to know oneself in depth.
The truth is that I believe that many times we can live life without knowing what we want, and without knowing who we are, we may believe that we want what we have learned that we should want, but we don't consciously choose what we want, we don't make that decision, we just want something and that's it. It is so. It is something that happens at an unconscious level. And I like to use the word "attraction" for the things we desire, not just with people but with everything, and it's because the word is so accurate, I think. When something attracts you, it is because that thing is making you go towards it, it is like a magnet, so not only are you looking for that thing, but at the same time, that is looking for you. What attracts you is looking for you.
Now, that's how you know you want something. You have to be sure. But if you doubt, if you think maybe, perhaps, if you think you can freely decide what you want, then chances are that really that's not it.
I think it also takes a significant degree of discernment to know what we are really looking for. Sometimes we don't look for the thing, but for its qualities. Sometimes we look for what something represents to us, and not what it really is. And other times we look for things that seem to have what we want, but in fact don't. Most of the time people are looking for ideas and feelings, not things, it's just that we associate those ideas and those feelings with those things, and at some point we get confused and think they are the same thing. They are not.
Maybe I'm over analyzing it here because I think it's actually very simple. When you want something, you know it, you don't need reasons, and the reason you don't need reasons is because it is in itself something obvious and self-explanatory. Rather, you should find reasons why you don't want that, but why you want it, it should be obvious. The thing is, you may not know you want that thing until you find it. And after finding it one must truly ask oneself if what one wants is the thing itself, the idea, the feeling, or what else specifically? But once you know it, it's easy. I'm sure the hardest part is finding it in the first place.
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I often feel the other way round.
I know exactly what I need and want, but I can't get it because it's out of stock or no longer made. Since I'm very picky with material things and don't take the first thing I see, I often walk out of a shop without buying anything (although I haven't been shopping for months).
But when I'm wandering rather aimlessly through the aisles, sometimes something falls into my hand that I could well use or that I've been looking for for a while and had just forgotten about. Or I discover something that fits someone else and I seize the opportunity.
The thing is, as you say, if you know yourself well, you don't have to know exactly what it could be, but when you see it, it's just the right thing.
Some things you desire don't really fit you and you want them because you've seen them in others, but in time you realise that that desire was just a stopgap. Chance plays a big role for me. When things are too orderly, when I am precise, I may disregard something that could be dear to me. Where I allow chance, good things happen to me.
I remember when we were children, roaming around the empty fairground looking for lost money. I never found a note because I was looking for it. But if I didn't look, I found money somewhere else.
It works the other way round too. That which we don't want, that too will be fulfilled one day, but sometimes it comes at a price we didn't ask for. Many inner desires come true, but they do not always have only positive effects, but ones that one might not have expected.
The goal orientation that is so often talked about and that one must know exactly what the goals are and how to achieve them, a widespread attitude. On the other hand, nowhere do you get told that you have to learn to distinguish whether the goals are others' or your own, and you run after things that you think you desire or that are held in high esteem. The deception to which one is subject has high potential.
That's another perspective. But even if you don't get what you want, in my experience, you waste less time when you know what you want, because you just look for it, as opposed to looking for anything for a long time and then finding nothing.
I too often leave the store without buying, I'd rather leave empty-handed than with something I don't want.
Maybe it's not about goals specifically, but it is about having a clear direction. Although I admit it's really great when you find that thing you want and weren't looking for. But you can't plan for it.
And chance is always there, whether you plan for it or not.
Yeah, that happens. :) But then again, one spends more days not looking than looking, so it's likely.