We Want Too Much

A few months ago I had a conversation with an Uber driver named Monica in Mexico City. She informed me that she didn’t live in Mexico City but she drove there for work. She made the comment that Mexico City was way too busy and fast-paced for her to live comfortably.

Being a person from the United States, her comment shocked me at first. Mexico City felt incredibly peaceful compared to most if not all the major cities in the US. But logically, big cities are more hectic than the lesser known areas. I recalled my time in Seoul vs the area I lived in the middle of farms and rice fields about an hour away. Both places were severely less anxiety inducing than living in the US, but Seoul was obviously more fast-paced.

I told Monica that I could see Mexico City was hectic (the traffic is unbelievable but not as bad as LA), but it was somehow still more peaceful than life in most US cities. Just like I had been, she was shocked at first, took a moment to think, and then understood what I meant. She proceeded to say that a large part of US culture is never feeling like you have enough. She was starting to see the effects of this culture largely in Mexico City (gentrification is a serious issue), but Mexican culture generally teaches you to work with what you have rather than focusing on everything you wish you had. It’s impossible to live peacefully when all you do is think about what you don’t have.

Monica and I discussed how social media fuels the desire for all the things you don’t have. While I wholeheartedly agreed with Monica at the time, now I’m not so sure that fueling desire is the issue. I think the issue is that, as a society, we care too much about what people think. A lot of us didn’t grow up in the proper environment to know what we truly desire so we chase after basic things that the general public tells you to desire (money, designer clothes, luxury cars, etc). Social media is often fake and curated because society cares more about people appearing to have a desired lifestyle, relationship, political view, etc than truly being social. We desire to show others that we have what they think they want.

Again, I do believe this stems from growing up in environments that didn’t teach us how to confidently be ourselves so we continue to go around trying to appeal to others. Personally, I grew up feeling guilty each time I asked for more or asked for help. I imagine the core moment where this originates from is locked away in my early childhood memory and I’ll never have access to it, but I have a few memories that certainly reinforced this guilt. I’ve had countless friends tell me about their dreams and then tell me they’d never pursue them. They all felt like their dreams were unrealistic, but if some sort of miraculous opportunity fell out of the sky, they’d take it.

They needed permission. If the dream came to them, they couldn’t refuse; but they couldn’t make the effort unless something or someone told them it was okay and they would succeed. So the problem isn’t solely in us desiring things we don’t have, it’s that we don’t know what we truly desire, and even if we do, we’re waiting for permission to go after it regardless.

Eventually, some of us will finally give ourselves permission to use what we already have to build the life of our dreams. But the results will vary depending on how much we can truly handle. Often, creating a life where we can live our dreams means giving up the life we already built and any creative knows how difficult it can be to pivot from what you’ve created even when you can tell it’s going nowhere. Sometimes it takes following through to the end and hating the result in order to give yourself permission to quit next time. Even if next time is the next life.