Life should be lived by design, not default.
“It’s one thing to get what you want. But it’s another thing to want what’s worth getting.” — Shane Parrish
This is the danger of not spending time working out what you want to want.
Kyle Eschenroeder explains it beautifully…
Blindly following your desires makes you a slave to your impulses — slave to the assumptions of those around you, the advertisements you’re exposed to, and the confused chemical signals of your body.
If we don’t pause and ask ourselves what we want to want, we will spend our lives focused on unhealthy aims defined for us by others and the worst parts of ourselves.
We will pass these bad assumptions about life onto our children and loved ones.
We will reinforce these boring, desperate defaults in everyone we encounter.
To achieve freedom we must be able to think for ourselves.
If we don’t cut to the core and program our wants (our desires) then our best-case scenario is to be a successful, rich, or famous slave.
If we never peer into our programming then we may end up being the cleverest rat in the room, but that’s hardly worth celebrating.
TLDR: your default factory settings are awful.
Do not follow them.
The people who do will never actualise their potential - either for happiness or success.
“They do not what they intended but what they happen to run across” — Seneca
Your desires define your own paths of least resistance.
The goal is to arrive at a point where we actually want what we want to want.
Your life should be lived by design, not default.