What do you want? What do you REALLY want?
Hey, you're new here! Well, get your Bitch on! Don't forget to feed the Bitch. Thanks for visiting!
So I may have mentioned before that I read other people’s blogs. Guilty. The Bitch reads blogs all fucking day, sacrificing her precious eyeballs for you people. Fucking ungrateful. And the Bitch is like an Internet Sponge, soaking up all the crap awesomeness that’s floating around out there. And lately I’ve been running across some really awesome stuff, at least when measured by the Bitch-O-Meter. Take this one. This guy Tim starts off talking about words, and then look what happened! First he totally pisses me off by telling me to “mind my language” (as if!) and then he gets all wise and shit and starts saying stuff that makes sense. So go read it.
Fuck, I don’t mean now. Finish THIS post first, and THEN click. *Eyeroll*
Anyway. I got to the end of Tim’s post where he’s talking about phrases to use instead of the garbage some of us usually fill our heads with, and when I came to “I want…”, fucking lightbulbs were exploding ALL OVER. Seriously! You know that mythical “aha!” moment we’re supposed to have when we think of something brilliant? Well, picture that times like a thousand, because The Bitch is THAT brilliant. Brilliant times a thousand. And that’s like a hundredth of the actual lightbulbs.
I want.
Say that a couple of times, will you?
I want.
How does that feel? Kind of weird, right?
See, the thing is, we’re all sort of fucked up when to comes to “I want.” Lots of us, when we’re kids or something, are told in one way or another that saying “I want” is a bad thing. Selfish, maybe. We should think of others, not ourselves. Think of those poor starving kids in China while you choke down those cold congealed peas! And next time eat everything on your plate!
So “I want” has judgments.
And then we put “I want” away. We don’t know what we want, because we’ve hidden it away in a dark closet somewhere.
Or, we go crazy with “I want.” We run up enormous credit bills filled with “I want,” each trying to make a dent in the emptiness we feel inside. We fill bigger and bigger houses with boatloads of crap destined to take over our landfills, and still it’s not enough. We still feel that emptiness, even when surrounded by everything we thought we wanted.
The trouble is, we still don’t know what we want. We’re running after something, sure, but we haven’t gotten to the heart of it. “I want” is still hidden. It’s underneath that pile of crap, hidden below a stack of credit card statements.
Oh, we talk about what we want all the time. “I want world peace!” we chirp, or “I want a warm house in a safe neighborhood where I can raise my family!” We talk about wanting stuff, but it’s the stuff that it’s okay to say we want. These things are socially acceptable, so we are conditioned to want them. A 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house in the suburbs, 1.7 kids, an iPhone and a Prius. That’s what we want. And while we’re at it, we want good government, adequate and available health care, world peace, an end to climate change, our health, and maybe some more Doritos.
We want what everyone else wants because it’s okay to want that.
But we still don’t know what WE want.
What do you want?
Feel that? You had to take a deep breath, didn’t you? You know why?
Because you don’t know what you want.
Most of us don’t know what we REALLY want. Knowing what you want takes WORK. You have to dig deep. You think about what you want and then you go deeper: WHY do you want that? And digging deeper takes guts. It takes courage. It takes the strength to really look at yourself and answer questions with honesty. And most of us aren’t all that willing to do that. It’s hard. It brings stuff up. It feels icky. And it reveals answers that may not fit within the image of ourselves we thought we had. It reveals a person we didn’t know we were.
Is that what you want?
Do you want to find out who you really are?
Then start asking yourself, What do I want? And start listening to the answers.
Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!
Related posts:
October 9th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Yes, I love it! Also, ‘I don’t want to.’ You know, someone wants you to go with them to some boring relative do or whatever, and you start telling them how you are busy that day or you suddenly have a migraine coming on, or you have to go to some convenient funeral. So they start trying to talk you into it and finding a way around all your manufactured excuses. Well I came up with a brilliant one that stops them in their tracks: ‘I don’t want to.’ Try it, I swear, it works every time.
Bitch (hope you don’t mind me calling you that), I love your blog. Expect to see me around a bit.
Hilarys last blog post..Villains and victims
October 9th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Good post. Thanks.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:02 am
“It takes the strength to really look at yourself and answer questions with honesty.”
That is so absolutely true! It’s so hard to deal with the face in the mirror. As always, you’re right on. Your posts always make me stop and think and I love it.
Kool Aids last blog post..dominion
October 9th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Nice post. It is also important to say to yourself “I matter/am important”. That, too, sometimes is made to seem like it is a selfish statement.
a.eyes last blog post..Words on Wordless Wednesday
October 9th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Man, talk about a gut check early in the morn. We think that talking about what we want is easy, and then you get all new age bitchy on us and reveal that it’s not. Well played. And some terrific points. We are conditioned to “want” only what’s acceptable, and in our consumer-driven (rotting at the core) society that means useless crap. Ugh, makes me sick to think about it.
And excellent point also to Hilary - I make up so many fucking excuses for getting out of things I don’t want to do, because it’s not acceptable to simply state and act on what we don’t want.
QuietRebelWriters last blog post..Writer Profile: Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing
October 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am
All I can say is FUCKING brilliant …. WOW, you have no idea how much I needed to read that ….. LOL!
Masterzans last blog post..Trust
October 9th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Hilary: Absolutely brill. And don’t be tricked into giving a “why” for “I don’t want to.”
Eylos: Thanks for stopping. I think you’re not spam. Are you spam?
Kool Aid: CommentLuv says your last post is called “Dominion” but I immediately went to “Dominatrix.”
A.Eye: You’re right, and we talked about that a few posts back. How fucked up is it that we can’t say we matter without feeling judged? So say it anyway.
QuietRebel: And we’ve been conditioned away from self-awareness. It goes hand in hand. Frightening, isn’t it? Who’s in charge here?
Masterzan: The Bitch is here to serve.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Right in there. Maturing seems to take a lot of the sting out of wanting, craving and needing. The truest draws nearer based on the knowing the truth. It’s all we ever really ‘want’ anyway. Like being chipped away until the most burning fire of the the questions reveals that all that has been burned away was ready to be so. What remains is what I want and love.
Thank you putting it out there and in the open for examination and reflection.
One Love
October 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I am waiting for someone to tell me what I want..
What does “the Bitch” want anyway?
October 10th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Does it make me an utter arsehole that the whole time I was reading that The Spice Girls were singing in my head and all I could think about is how I want that chocolate that The Damn Emos ate an hour ago?
Oh and world peace. Yeah.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Psiplex: Deep, dude. Also true.
Jim: Seriously, you want someone to tell you what you want? Then it won’t be what you want. The Bitch? The Bitch wants world peace. And Doritos for all. Also that feeling of inner quiet and utter possibility she gets from meditation.
Kelley: I was THIS CLOSE to working in a Spice Girls mention. This.Close.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Dominatrix, huh? Is it that obvious? I thought I was hiding it well….
Kool Aids last blog post..Keeping up with the little men
October 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
special thanks to kelley as i’ve been singing spice girls in my head all morning.
loved your challenging words (once again) and it has caused me to take time and think. something that we so often forget to do…
October 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I want it all.
I want it all.
I want it all.
AND I WANT IT NOW!
Congealed peas when everyone is looking for whirled peas?
Alans last blog post..Cracked BMW Engine
October 10th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
That was just a joke, basically saying I am a man and men are easy…
Jim Gaudets last blog post..I am a different person when it’s cold.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Kelley: I had the same problem when reading this post. It appears I am a 13 year old trapped in a 39 year old’s body.
Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.
I also heard the words of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate (mmm, chocolate) Factory spin in my head.
I want the world
I want the whole world
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It’s my bar of chocolate
Give it to me
Now!
I want today
I want tomorrow
I want to wear ‘em like braids in my hair
And I don’t want to share ‘em
I want a party with room fulls of laughter
Ten thousand tons of ice cream
And if I don’t get the things I am after
I’m going to scream!
October 11th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I was wondering how old you were? You sound so wise..that was great advice..I’m 62…a grandma great grandma, wife, mother and friend..
And I love the f word..so did my mom and most of our family..I never realized how many people didn’t agree it was so bad..so I’ve spent a lifetime trying to use it less.
This is my first time on your blog….came from sugarpants…
In the end..it doesn’t work…
Hugs and good luck on your blog..
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com
Dorothy Stahlneckers last blog post..Women In Business Expo Eastern Hills Mall
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] a short while ago we talked about what you really want? You still don’t know what you want if any of this appealed to you in the slightest. [...]