Article 3: Why should you change?

If you are going to deliberately change yourself, it seems useful to know what you actually want. That sounds almost obvious but It’s not. Most of us, when asked what we want, immediately begin listing things: more money, a better job, a better body, a house, a car, a degree, recognition, success, whatever. There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of these things.

What I question is whether these things are actually the desire or whether they are simply the thing we believe would deliver the desire. There is a very easy way to find out. Ask yourself: Why do I want it? Suppose you say: I want more money. Why? Because I want a nicer house. Why? Because I want more room. Why? Because I want my family to be comfortable. Why does that matter? Eventually the answer begins moving away from money. Perhaps what you actually want is security, status, admiration, or love. Perhaps you are simply tired of being afraid every time a bill arrives. The money is the goal; the thing you believe the money will create is the desired outcome. Those are not necessarily the same thing.

I spent a great deal of my working life building luxury yachts. Because of that, I met quite a few wealthy people. Before spending time around genuine wealth, I think some part of me assumed that people with enormous amounts of money must inhabit a fundamentally different emotional world from the rest of us; they do not. Some of the extremely wealthy people I met were lovely. Some were miserable. Some were generous. Some were frightened. Some seemed satisfied. Others seemed to have acquired almost everything a person could reasonably purchase and were still deeply unhappy.

This does not mean wealth makes people miserable. That would be just as foolish as claiming wealth automatically makes them happy. What it taught me was simply this: Money and happiness are not the same object. Money can do many useful things. It can purchase food, housing, medical care, education, comfort, travel, leisure, options. All of those things can be enormously valuable, but if what you actually want is to feel secure, acquiring money without ever addressing the fear underneath your insecurity may not produce the result you imagined. You may simply become a frightened person with more money.

The same thing applies to other goals. Let’s say you want the perfect body. Why? Perhaps you want health. Perhaps you want other people to find you attractive. Perhaps you want to feel desirable. Perhaps you believe people will finally respect you. Perhaps you believe you will finally respect yourself. Those are very different desired outcomes, even though they may come from exactly the same stated goal: I want a perfect body.

Knowing the difference matters. Imagine spending five years achieving something only to discover that the thing you achieved was merely a delivery mechanism for something it never delivered. You got the promotion, you are still unhappy. You bought the car, you are still insecure. You got the degree, you still do not respect yourself. You became thinner, you still do not like the person in the mirror. Again, I am not arguing against goals; I like goals. Goals give us something concrete to work toward.

What I am arguing for is knowing why the goal is there. That question became increasingly important to me because for much of my life I did not know what I wanted. I mostly wanted what I was supposed to want. I wanted to work. Make more money. Buy things. Improve my position. Receive approval. Get through Monday so I could reach Friday. I did many of those things without ever stopping to ask what I expected them to accomplish.

When I eventually began asking that question, my answers were not always flattering. Sometimes I wanted admiration. Sometimes I wanted to prove someone wrong. Sometimes I wanted other people to validate me. I do not think pretending those motives do not exist makes them disappear. Once I recognized them, I could ask: What do I believe that will give me? If I want people to validate me, why? Will their validation make me feel important? Why do I need to feel important? What am I afraid it means if I am ordinary? Now I was getting somewhere. This is where goals and fear began intersecting.

The things we chase are attempts to build safety. Enough money and I will be safe. Enough status and nobody can dismiss me. Enough attractiveness and I will not be rejected. Enough achievement and nobody can call me a failure. Enough possessions and everyone will know I succeeded. Sometimes those predictions are accurate enough. Money really can increase material security. Education really can create opportunities. Physical fitness really can improve what your body is capable of doing. The problem begins when we expect an external goal to repair an internal condition it was never capable of repairing. So before I put enormous effort into a goal now, I try to ask two questions. What do I want? And then the more important one: Why do I want it?

Sometimes the answer confirms the goal. Excellent, now I understand what I am trying to accomplish and why. Sometimes the answer changes the goal entirely. If what I really want is more time with the person I love, perhaps earning twice as much money by working eighty hours a week is a very strange strategy. If what I really want is peace, perhaps obtaining the admiration of people I do not even like is not especially relevant. If what I really want is security, perhaps I need to work on the fear that makes no amount of money feel like enough.

Once you know the desired outcome, you can finally evaluate whether the goal in front of you is actually a good route to it. That is conscious programming, not simply becoming more efficient at chasing whatever desire happened to be installed in you. Conscious Programming requires us to occasionally stop long enough to ask whether we are consciously choosing the destination.

Think about something you want very badly: the money, the house, the body, the promotion, the recognition, the degree; whatever it is. Do not abandon it. Do not judge yourself for wanting it. Just ask: Why do I want it? Then ask why again. Keep going until the answer is no longer an object, a title, a number, or something another person can see. Somewhere underneath the goal is the thing you believe the goal will make you feel. That desired feeling is probably much closer to what you actually want.