One of my biggest questions is still what people really want, especially what younger people want, what youth wants. And as I have visited quite some internet cafes recently it seems that young people, students just want to play games, computer games, internet games, as most of the people around me in this internet cafe seem to play computer games or internet games.
And I have thought about that quite a lot recenlty, as I remember that when I was a student there was I time that I was also addicted to a computer game. And that in later periods in my life I also played games quite a lot, although in the end, mostly after months, I will get bored with it, so right now, recently, I didn’t really play that much.
But looking at my goals, my desires, in the end I also just want to ‘play’, want to relax. And recently also realized that many things people do business wise is to entertain people, serve people in their spare time. And that indeed virtually anything that is being produced or sold is mainly focused on entertainment, of course next to things for daily needs like food and household items.
And this brought me back to the old Roman quote “Bread and circuses” (or “bread and games”). And I just read in Wikipedia that that is mainly related to politics, like keep the people happy in a simple way.
But going back to the subject of what people want I am indeed really wondering what people really want. And maybe I should just see if I can find some statistics about that as for now I basically have my own reference and some feedback I got from some of my friends. But that feedback is often very limited and confirms what Napoleon Hill states, that most people don’t have a definite purpose or a goal in life. Mostly I hear people say if I ask them what they want, what they want in life very simple common things like ‘a family’ or ‘enough money to support me and my family’ or ‘a happy life’. So indeed hardly any of the people I asked have clear definite goals they want to achieve, let alone dates and plans related to them.
And also looking at myself I am slowly starting to realize why most people are where they are. They are where they are because they are not very specific about what they want, where they want to be. So they are indeed where they intend to be: nowhere.
And that makes me often think about the quote from Alice in Wonderland who is at a crossroad and asks someone whether she should go left or right. And the other person or creature asks where she wants to go. And she says something like “I don’t know” and then (of course) the answer is “then it doesn’t matter whether you go, left or right”. And the more I think about it, this is so true. And this is where most of us I guess end up, including me at the moment, although I think I am a little bit further than the majority of people.
But all that I know about goals and timing and plans makes life much easier for me, as right now I don’t have any clear short term timescale or plans. So often I don’t really move so much, don’t take much action. And before I would mostly kind of blame myself for not doing anything. But right now, when I am in a place where I think I don’t want to be, I often realize how I got there. Just by doing the things I did, making the choices I made. And indeed, I am starting to believe that uninspired action, action without a specific goal, is quite useless, maybe indeed harmful to get us where we want to go, where we want to be. As uninspired action may indeed just get us further away from our goals than we think.
so yes, be happy where you are right now. Because you are where you are because of the things you did and the choices you made. And you may have quite some hidden desires that stop you from reaching goals that you think you have. Like in my case one of my implicit goals is to stay in The Malasag House in Cagayan de Oro City. And that limits my options and defines my choices. But it’s a very important, even though quite hidden and unspecified goal. As The Malasag House is my home and I don’t want to leave my home anymore as I did before, and realized I lost my home only afterwards.
So what are your goals? And what are your hidden goals? You may be closer to where you want to be or may just be where you want to be if you look at all of this closely.
So be happy where you are and start from there if you want more or something else.