The funny thing about “knowing what you want” is that it’s incredibly simple—on paper. All you have to do is have the most basic level of experience (any 18 ye

The funny thing about “knowing what you want” is that it’s incredibly simple—on paper. All you have to do is have the most basic level of experience (any 18 year old has enough). Pay attention as you go, and do more of what brings you “joy” and less of what makes you feel bad. Good and bad feeling are terribly defined in the English language, so to be clear, joy in this sense is more a mix of flow, fulfillment and a sense of high regard rather than anything that might be more linked with pleasure. Dancing can bring you joy, going to the club, getting drunk, and finding a one-night stand probably won’t, even if there’s music involved. In practice, it gets hard because there are so many external forces imposing themselves on us, shouting so we only hear them, intentionally drowning out our inner voices. They do this on purpose so they can control us. The message is usually in the form of what “high status” is and telling us what we have to do to achieve it. There’s rarely any overlap between what they tell us to do and what brings us joy. I guess this all boils down to: if you want to know what you want, learn to listen to yourself only, in the face of all this noise. Status is a siren song.