The Pros & not-so-Pros; of knowing what you want
Had there been a rulebook, most people would have chanted or signed how knowing what you want leads to making your life easier.
I agree that having a clear sight of where you want to proceed in life, or how you want to proceed are the important factors to accomplishment. But there is another side to the discussion that people haven’t yet picked up.
The difficulties you face when you know what you want.
I live by inspirational quotes. That being said, Rumi’s quote “What you seek is seeking you” had been pasted above my study table for ages now. As soothing as it sounds from a spiritual perspective, looking at it from a real-life angle makes you question, “how long till I find it?”
When you observe your surroundings, you will notice that we have a lot of wonderful people still trying to pick up on what they are looking for (in their professions, or in education, or in life itself). And then, there is another group — people who are aware of what they want out of a deal.
The positive side of belonging to the first group is that the individual can mould into any environment, situation, or any role. These people might be easier to motivate with different offers that life brings to them.
As for the second group that we mentioned, impressing or motivating them is rather a bit of tough luck. These people are selective, and often picky about their requirements and how they would want a certain situation to play out. And I am afraid, I belong to this group.
The number of times I have heard people say this, it was meant to be a compliment and a well-received one! But the more I look at it, I understand how it might not always play out easy (not that life was meant to be easy, anyway).
People like myself, are selective and this automatically narrows down our choices at a vast level. The kind of people we want to be around, the kind of job we want, the energy we thrive in, and the energy we give out. While there are numerous and enormous pros to it, hear me out please, there are few “no-so-pros” as well.
While being specific definitely helps us with the direction, what it also does is reduces the “other” choices and chances that we could have explored. Some may debate that it saves us time in most cases. I beg to differ (just a little bit), while it does save us energy in most cases, it sometimes can take a longer time to reach a destination.
I will go with my favorite mode of using examples. Imagine 2 canvases,
Canvas A — untouched
Canvas B — only slightly streaked with few very specific colors
For canvas A to reach a point of completion and charm is rather higher compared to canvas B. Canvas A can begin to be sketched, colored, painted without having to worry about any pre-requisite or being specific.
On the other hand, since canvas B is already streaked with some specific colors, it rather becomes difficult to add just any color to it. One has to be specific to match according to the previous streaks to make sure it is not just complete but has its charm too. And reaching the charm requires the right artist.
Similarly, for people who know what they want, they know the people they want to be around too. It is important for them to make sure they are around a similar mindset and similar energy, which exactly is what makes the journey difficult — finding the right people and the right energy.
Quite frankly though, there is no good or bad being either of the canvases or groups of people. It was just an observation that I have been wanting to pen down given how nobody ever talks about the difficulties and struggles of the individuals who seem to know what they want out of their lives and careers. It may seem easy from afar whereas in reality the options that these individuals have are only limited and often too scattered; which also indicates how time and energy-investing their journey has to be.
N.B: A lot of us are going to have different opinions about this, which really, is absolutely fine. These are merely my observations that I have picked from my surroundings and conversations with people from different walks of life.
