We Only Want What We Can Almost Have
We want what we cannot have. We want the money the other person earns. We enjoy spending time with the other woman. We are drawn to women we should stay away from. We spend too much on things we don't need. We want that car. That house. That woman. That luxury.
The easy answer is envy. We envy those who already have it. We watch them enjoying life and feel we deserve that same enjoyment. We crave that same status. We want to feel special. We look toward other women who make us feel special again. We ignore the one at home because she no longer does.
The constant need is the problem. Often the need is valid. When you're starving, it's fine to dream of food, to move toward food. The artificial hunger is the problem. There's a deeper layer beneath our desires.
We don't dream of things we absolutely cannot have, or cannot afford even in our wildest imagination. We only dream of things and people we believe are within reach. Proximity to the desire creates the tension. We wrestle with this tension daily. We don't dream of owning a Bugatti. We do, in a way, but it doesn't consume us with envy. We dream of owning the Porsche our friend already has.
We don't dream of dating an actress. We dream of the woman who works in our office. Or at our university. Or in our neighborhood, someone we cross paths with every day. Proximity to attainment is what creates the tension. This tension fuels the desire. We know we're not far from achieving it. We hope to alter the trajectory of our life. But we also know it isn't that simple. It will create complications. This fuels the tension further.
Every time you indulge such desires, you feel good. It reminds you of what could have been. This what-could-have-been is a wonderful dopamine-triggering mechanism. You savor every part of the experience, precisely because nothing is at stake. The moment stakes enter, the desire starts to feel like a burden.
Desires carry no weight on their own. The stakes attached to them add the weight. The actions required to reach that desire create the tension. The conflict you must face to fulfill it creates the resentment.
Forbidden desires are effortless. They carry no weight. Add stakes, and you suddenly realize why your wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. She is safe. The stakes are known. The car you own is better than the car you want. There's comfort in the known.