On Writing What I Want

I have a habit of regularly asking myself what I want in life. I’d write it down and put it away, only returning to it when the next time I thought about writing it came about. I find Google docs very useful for this exercise, but I digress.

It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t written my “what I want” list for quite a while. I wrote one up and uploaded it into Google docs, and while there thought that I might as well go look through what I had written previously.

My previous list was dated about three months ago, or about Oct 2009, and the list before that was dated Aug 2009. I looked through both of them, and what struck me was how different my Jan 2010 list was from my Oct 2009 one, and how similar it was to the Aug 2009 one.

I suppose I should really explain what I mean by “similar” or “different”. It simply refers to the themes of each list. Without going into too much (confidential) detail, my list in Jan 2010 was geared strongly toward the achievement of material ends, while that of the Oct 2009 talked much about the renouncement of chasing after material ends.

It’s like a peak and trough of material susceptibility – one moment I’m a mercenary chasing after material wealth, the next I’m an ascetic renouncing material goods; a few moments later, I’m a mercenary once more.

I cannot say for sure what all this means, but it sure gives me something to think about.