A friend of mine mentioned that adolescents are a gift to parents in their middle-age. Why? Because by middle age, many adults have stopped maturing emotionally, falsely believing they have arrived at the highest level of development. What do adolescents bring? With their challenges to authority, striving for independence and their questions, they disrupt the family rhythms and assumptions. This is not a bad thing, my friend says. It causes parents to take a hard look at who they’ve become and be willing to continue their own personal journey of growth and maturity.
In the same way, the disruption of disappointments and failures in finding satisfaction in what we’ve accomplished or experienced in our careers and in our personal lives can be a gift to us. We often find ourselves wanting more and wondering why, presenting rich opportunities for growth.
Where do wants come from?
What do I do when I feel like I don’t have or didn’t get what I want? Why do I desire the things I desire, anyway? I have identified several sources of wanting: from needs, windows, wounds, wholeness, calling, and sacrifice.
I am examining each of these on a journey of wanting well.
One more thought before we dive in: What often affects and conflicts with living well is managing scarce resources. But while we may feel that the scarcest resource is time, it’s not. It’s attention. Attention is driven by wants and needs, so life is a game where we win by wanting well.
This series of articles will posit that living life – what we do – is a result of wants and desires. A life well-lived is a life of wanting well. We’ll go through a 5-level model to explore what self leadership looks like as we learn to want well:
But first, we must acknowledge that the foundation of our growth towards self leadership is the completion of our basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, and safety (think Maslow’s hierarchy of need). While we often desire more in that category, we can probably agree that, for most of us reading this article, those needs are pretty well-satisfied.
So what happens once those needs are (mostly) fulfilled? We look around for the next level of satisfaction, beginning to want what we see others having. I call this “wanting from windows” because our wants are shaped not necessarily from an inner desire, but from what we see “through” others.
Wanting from Windows
Why do I allow what others have to tell me what I want? There is a type of “social gravity” that pulls me towards others and pulls what they have towards me, making what they have appear attractive to me. I have been surprised by the possibility that I only want something others have because I see that they have it, but I am increasingly persuaded that this is true.
French philosopher Rene Girard describes this gravity, saying “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” He calls this mimetic desire.
Consider these illustrations. The first one shows that what we think we want comes from seeing and valuing that object directly. However, according to Girard, that’s not how it works.
What we want actually comes through someone else, seeing what they have (see image below). Someone else becomes our window. I saw this in action when an associate of mine showed up at an event bringing news that he’d just bought the first Tesla in the country. I could see the eyes of each person around the table start to shine with desire for their own! It wasn’t through careful examination of the Tesla’s features compared to other cars, nor hours spent test driving various models that drove the desire. Those around the table saw the car through the window of its owner, and, in that moment, wanted one for themselves. This next image illustrates what I mean.
I am not making a moral judgment on this. Simply because we want something others want doesn’t mean those desires are bad. However, it’s important to be honest with where those desires come from and give it some examination.
Who is our model?
Mimetic desire is not something we can choose. But what we can choose is who or what we allow to be our window.
Entrepreneur, professor, and author Luke Burgis coined two phrases to describe the types of models we look through: those who are close to us, our peers, he calls freshmanistan. Those who are distant he calls celebristan.
He points out that our freshmanistan models, because they are close, tend to spark the most rivalry and competition. This isn’t always the case, but it is more likely to happen than if we predominantly focus on celebristan models.
How do we recognize our freshmanistan models who are fomenting rivalry? They’re the ones we want to fail. They are the ones who are most like us yet seem to have what we lack. And we want what they have, creating personal rivalries borne out of scarcity.
Celebristan models, on the other hand, are so far removed from us, no competition is possible. However, just as not all of those close to us spur rivalry, not all who are far from us, even though we may not be competing with them for what we want, are estimable characters worthy of our gaze. It’s easy to pick out major politicians, for example, whom it is easy to ignore as having no influence in shaping our desires.
We have some choices to make
It’s not impossible to overcome this type of gravity, but it does require work and struggle.
So how do we engage with this idea?
- Be aware that this is happening to us all the time. Our desires are shaped by whom and what we look at and are not independent and autonomous.
- Turn down the rivalry by establishing mimetic boundaries. Unfollow people. Turn off social media. Express gratitude for their qualities you admire. Learn to identify and appreciate your own uniqueness.
- Pick your models carefully and deliberately. We can choose who our models are that we look through and how influential we allow them to be. Tune into celebristan models you can look up to, and tune your heart to want things less scarce. Pick the celebristan models that promote human flourishing.
I’ve been careful to cultivate just who my celebristan windows are. I look at Chuck Feeney, a model of philanthropy. Nelson Mandela inspires me as a peacemaker. I look at Jesus for a model of how to live for the benefit of others. There are others (Bill George, Warren Rustand, Dave Brereton) in the world of business and leadership; and finally, Dallas Willard, who is a master of spiritual and life integration.
I’ve come to accept that I cannot escape wanting from windows and I can even embrace it. Because I can choose the windows who promote human flourishing.
Who would you like to look through to shape your desires?
