Here is a definition I love, a quote I’m still wrestling with deciding if I agree, and a thought that has been on my mind the last few days. Here they are, listed in that order. None of them are explicitly tied to the other, but it would be easy to draw parallels between each of them.
“Learning is the process of doing what you don’t know how to do, while you don’t know how to do it.”
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
Every decision you ever make, you make because you want to do it. Even if it’s something you “don’t want to do” you clearly would still prefer to do it over the consequences of not doing it.
Example: A kid who is told to clean his room 5 different times. The first four times, he doesn’t do it because he doesn’t want to. The fifth time he is given a warning that he will be punished if he doesn’t do it. He still “doesn’t want to” but he does want to do it over getting punished for not doing it.
Even though he would say he didn’t want to clean his room, the truth is that he did want to clean his room. He just needed the appropriate alternative to outweigh his desire to avoid it.
Every decision you make make is something you want to do. No one is ever forced to do something they don’t want to do, they are simply convinced to do it over the alternative.