The process and the prize

# Chapter 297

Oscar Wilde said there are two great tragedies in life, not getting what you want in life, and getting what you want in life. One has to hope and pray that he is quite wrong. What we want and don’t want keeps us motivated and moving in life and we need those things in order to live and succeed in life. Of course Wilde may be right and I may be wrong, that is always a possibility, but I think not. One of the things everyone must learn in life is what they don’t want. It is one of the basic things I review with every client, because knowing what you don’t want is foundational to moving toward what you do want and what we will pursue together.

If you have no wants you are basically dead, and if getting what you want is a tragedy then you have the choice of death or doom? So you have a decision to make right now, believe the death and doom model, or accept another model that what you want is what you want and that you are going to work hard for it and enjoy both the process and the prize, and that if you discover that what you want isn’t really what you want, then you will start again and rinse and repeat. This is pretty much the only forward progress model out there that I can think of, because the all the other models leave you doom scrolling and in the doldrums for your whole life. And to me that would be the real tragedy in the story of your life,