I Want to Not Want

Srikumar Rao discusses many of the basic ideas of positive psychology in his book, although he has found these ideas in philosophy and in various religions, and doesn’t cite research.

One important nugget of wisdom he offers is that stress comes from wanting – either wanting something or wanting the absence of something. (Rao suggests that all stress comes from this, although I’m not entirely sure about the all part.) But his point is that anxiety and upset come from not being okay with things as they are. If you stop and think about this for a moment, I think you’ll agree that it seems true. If you can feel like there’s nothing you want, this allows a calm contentment to surface.

But what is life without wanting something? Goals are an important aspect of life. Generally, we’re sizing up our lives and ourselves based on goals: Are we achieving them? Are we behind? Are we excited that we did well? Goals help us to feel like life is meaningful. We have to have some reason to get up in the morning.

There is quite a bit of research on goal orientation and pursuit, which indicates that certain types of goals are healthier than others. Some goals are downright bad for you. Essentially, goals associated with intimacy, spirituality, and generativity are correlated with higher subjective well-being (SWB). Extrinsic, materialistic goals, like power, financial success, social recognition, and good-looks, are negatively correlated with SWB (Emmons, 1991; Kasser and Ryan, 1996). On top of this, high levels of avoidance goals, such as “not getting into trouble,” (as opposed to something like “being as helpful as possible”) also negatively predicted SWB (King and Emmons, 1991). Overall, goals relating to helping others seem to be the most worthwhile.

Another tidbit that seems useful is the idea of goal concordance – that goals are aligned with the growing virtues and interests of the self. I think this is where possible stress from goals could come in, causing other wants (for instance, “I don’t want to do this assignment,” in the case of pursuing a degree that doesn’t interest you, or “I want to smack him” in the case of a relationship that isn’t serving you.)

Is a goal the same as a want?

A want is the present feeling of wishing something were different and being unhappy with the way things are. A goal is a direction to move in, something to move towards. The word “motivation” is highly related, stemming from a root that means ” a moving cause.” So, a want is a feeling in the present moment, and a goal is a future-oriented metric by which to make motion in our lives.

I’d like to end by proposing that gratitude is the antidote for wanting. When you concentrate on feeling sincerely grateful for something, wanting disappears. You feel content for the moment, and as Barbara Fredrickson has shown, this feeling of gratitude builds. You tend to feel more gratitude, and theoretically less want. This certainly needs a lot more research and thought. More on this in the future.