“I don’t want to go to work today.”
“I don’t want to reply to this email”
“I don’t want…..”
Almost every day you run into someone who says or acts like they don’t want to do the thing they are doing. They use language to throw away responsibility for their choices.
Wishing For An Easy Way Out
We all have responsibilities that don’t make us feel excited. Tough and unpleasant stuff that we need to do to get things we want in the future. We may wish for an imaginary world where these unpleasant responsibilities weren’t required for us to get what we want, but our wishing doesn’t change anything.
To make money at your job, you probably need to get up early.
To get fit, you need to go to the gym.
Competing Values
Our preferences are expressed through our actions. When you choose to do something you are demonstrating that you want to do that thing. If you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t be doing it.
When people say “I don’t want to go to work today.”, but then do, what they really meant was “I wish I didn’t have to do anything valuable or physically move to make money today.” But by going to work, they show that they value financial security over relaxation.
When people say “I wanted to lose weight but didn’t”, what they really mean is “I wish I could keep eating delicious food and still lose weight.” Their actions show that they value the enjoyment of eating more than their health.
Even in an extreme situation like driving a bank robber away from a crime scene because he car-jacked you and has you at gunpoint, you may say that you don’t want to help him, but the reality is you want to preserve your life more than you want to assist in stopping the bank robber.
Using language like this is a small way that we give away our power and responsibility for our own life. We say things that make it seem like we don’t have a choice in order to avoid facing our own preferences and values.
If I go to work, I want to go to work because I value upholding my responsibilities and making money more highly than I value sleeping in. Part of me may wish for a world where I can have both, but I know that world doesn’t exist at this moment. I value both, but one wins.
When we are clear with ourselves about what we value me, we free ourselves of a lot of internal tension and resistance. We can proceed with a clear mind. We can accept that part of us would like to sleep in, but that is not the part that dictates our actions at 6 am.
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