Defining Your "Things Worth Fighting For"
What do you want from your life? It’s a simple question, but answering it can be incredibly hard. Many of my friends can tell me what they think they should do or what they need to do, but not what they want. That's like aiming at a moving target and never knowing if you're even aiming at the right thing. It’s a frustrating and futile way to live.
If I asked you, “What do you want”, what would you say? We humans have an endlessly changing list of things we want – a better job, new car, new home, new things, new or better friendships, new boyfriend/girlfriend, better marriage, health and security for our family. It’s a list in constant flux, as our lives and circumstances change.
I’m old enough now to know I really shouldn’t trust my wants. Too many times I've gone hard and fast after things I wanted, only to find I didn’t feel satisfied when I got them. (Mostly this seems to be true about material things.) That doesn’t mean I’ve adopted a Zen mindset of not wanting what I haven’t got – there are lots of things that catch my eye when I wander through Home Depot or REI, but I've learned to distrust those longings. Perhaps a better question than what you want is, what do you truly desire?
The words that get translated as “desire” in the bible really mean “a passion or craving built on strong feelings.” I think of this as the deepest longings of our hearts. Proverbs 19:22 says, “What a person desires is unfailing love.” Of all the things I’ve wanted and pursued in life, I’ve never found unfailing love to come up short. The writer of that proverb was onto something.
Why should you define your desires? Psychologist Viktor Frankl once said that unless a person wakes up in the morning and knows where they’re going, their life seems muddled and confusing. Knowing what you desire is essential if you want to establish what’s most important in your life and use those things to guide you, rather than pointlessly chasing wants and urgent things.
It can be a challenge to determine what we desire, especially when we’re barraged by a heart full of wants. Defining what you desire requires asking yourself the right questions, then doing the hard, patient work required to accurately answer them.
What might that look like?
First, set aside enough time to answer the questions. You might get your answers in one block of time but it’s naive to think you'll get your answers quickly. It’s something that can’t be rushed. I’d start with a half-day minimum, but know it may require more time than that. Remember, the answers are important enough to build in sufficient time to answer them.
Second, shut out the noise of your life. Devices (phones, computers, TVs) and people clammer for our attention and fill our minds and hearts with things demanding our attention. You may need to schedule time away and work out childcare to fully escape the demands of your life. Being able to think clearly and without interruption is essential. So is patience.
Shutting out noise can take time - it can take hours for your mental to-do list and distractions to quiet down. Calming or breathing exercises to re-center your mind and heart may help. The easiest is a simple breath-count, where you inhale to a count of four (or six or eight), hold your breath for that count, then exhale for that count. And count out loud - it forces your mind to focus on the numbers and ignore the things that preoccupy you.
Third, find a place to be alone. Take a hike without a goal or destination (other than a place to sit and think), find a bench in a public park or along a greenway path, in an empty pavilion or a church sanctuary, a place beside a lake or stream, or a quiet room in your home. Get to a place where you’re unlikely to run into other people.
Fourth, ask the right questions. Asking “what do I want” or “what do I desire” rarely yields good answers. It's helpful to think about the life roles you’re in, then ask yourself what your ambitions (desired outcomes) are for those roles. (My roles include husband, father, career coach, mentor, friend, healthy human, and God-follower – yours may be different.) For each of these ask yourself, “what do I want to be true about me in this role in five, ten, or twenty years, or at the end of my life”. Or, you might use hindsight and ask, “what did I accomplish in that role?”
Knowing the roles you have (or want) in your life, and what you want as results of being in those roles, is a great way to determine the deepest longings of your heart. If you know these aspirations then you can build in the ways to attain and defend them. After all, if they are truly worthwhile, then they are things worth fighting for.