What’s worth wanting?

Wake-Up Call #7

I’ve spent a lot of time noodling on what I want from this thing called life. In my work. My marriage. Being a dad. A friend. A maker. A member of the community. And a person who inhabits a meat suit I’m trying to keep steaming along.

A few years back, a conversation with the incredible Parker Palmer found me complementing that question with another.

What does my life want from me? I keep revisiting it.

But, it was a deep dive conversation on Good Life Project®, right around a year ago, with Matthew Croasmun, Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture that introduced me to what I see as the question beneath those questions:

What is worth wanting?

It adds an element of practicality to the inquiry. To know what’s worth wanting, I have to also ask:

Why do I want it?

What’s the benefit of seeking it? Is that benefit real or imagined, and how can I know?

What about the benefit of getting it? Is that benefit real or imagined, and how can I know?

What’s the cost of seeking it? Is that cost real or imagined, and how can I know?

And the cost of getting it? Is that cost real or imagined, and how can I know?

These questions matter. Maybe as much, if not more, than the answers.

All too often, we set our minds to achieving or acquiring or creating or investing in something. A new home, relationship, job, car, health quest, athletic goal, or learning pursuit. We know we want it, at least we think we know, but never truly understanding what’s at stake.

Six years ago, I was looking at getting my Masters in Applied Positive Psychology at a fancy-pants university.

I was ready. I wanted it. Sent in my application. Grateful to be accepted.

Then, a weird thing happened.

I flinched.

Hesitated long enough for me to drop into Croasmun’s seminal query. Though, back then, I didn’t have his language for it.

Why did I want it? Was it worth it?

Uncomfortable truths began to emerge.

I’d been working, making and serving in the space of human potential for more than 20 years, created media that allowed me to share ideas with millions, taught thousands, trained hundreds of teachers, written books, won awards, blah, blah, blah. Arguably, made a smidge of a dent in that universe.

Still, there was this voice inside of me that said, “if you want to be taken seriously, you need that degree.” It was an uneasy voice, in no small part, because it wasn’t mine. Five-plus decades into life, I was still living into someone else’s implicit proclamation of what it takes to become wise enough to offer value, to lead, to garner respect. Even though I knew it wasn’t true. Impact was, and will always be, a more winning hand than pedigree.

What about the applied knowledge. Maybe that’s what I wanted. That’s worth it, right?

For better or worse, I’ve realized that I don’t truly care about ideas unless and until I can see a path for them to manifest in the form of things, evoke emotion, or create impact. Preferably, all three. I assumed this education would give me that. Then, I started asking questions, and quickly realized it was largely theoretical, the applied part would have to come from me. As it has been for my entire life. Which is fine. But, worth wanting? Given the sacrifice? At least for me, at that time? Hmmmm.

What about access to the world-class profs? Was that worth wanting?

Yes, but. Turns out, there were better, faster, easier and less-encumbered ways to get it. I’d always craved access to luminaries in the field of positive psychology, behavioral economics, conscious business, and the broader social sciences. Through this degree program, I hoped to learn from the many primary researchers who would swoop in and teach the intensive weekends. But, I realized I was in a weird, yet opportune position. I already devour the research papers the moment they’re published. And, through the vehicle of Good Life Project, for a dozen years, I’ve had the incredible good fortune to have direct access to most, if not all of those incredible hearts and minds. But in a more intimate, conversational container. All to myself, to ask anything and everything I want to know.

Then, there was the cost.

The degree would devour a year out of my already on-the-verge-of-crashing-out life. I was seven years into running one company, and had just launched another (I know, I know, madness of my own making). It would have been giant investment of time and money. A major reallocation of cognitive bandwidth. Taken me away from both businesses and family. I had no idea how I would pull it off.

I kept coming back to the question.

Why did I want it so bad? Would it be worth it?

It didn’t take long for me to realize, at least for me, and for that moment in time, pursuing my masters degree wasn’t actually worth wanting. It wouldn’t have given me what I yearned for, at least in the way I wanted. Nor made me feel the way I hoped to feel. And the potential costs to my relationships, businesses, physical and mental health, and bank account would have been substantial.

I walked away. It wasn’t easy. Because it also meant walking away from scripts about worth, value, dignity, and respect that’d been running in my head since I was a kid.

So, when Matthew Croasmun floated his powerful question years later, it hit me hard, but in the best of ways. I’ve kept that question at the center of nearly every query, quest or craving since.

What’s worth wanting?

It’s not enough to know what you want. Or even why.

We’ve got to dig deeper, to try to understand if the thing we’re striving after truly is worth wanting.

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Wake-Up Call Prompt #7

Bring to mind something you’ve been wanting. Maybe it’s a tangible thing. Maybe an achievement or goal. Maybe it involves work, a relationship, hobby, passion or pursuit.

Now, ask yourself, is it really worth wanting?

And, to help tease the answer out, play with these additional questions:

Why do I want it?

What’s the benefit of seeking it? Is that benefit real or imagined, and how can I know?

What about the benefit of getting it? Is that benefit real or imagined, and how can I know?

What’s the cost of seeking it? Is that cost real or imagined, and how can I know?

And the cost of getting it? Is that cost real or imagined, and how can I know?

And, as always, feel free to share your thoughts, questions and explorations in the comments below.

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In case you’re interested in the full conversation with Matthew Croasmun…