What Do I Want in Life?

It was 31st December, and I was sitting on my couch with a pen and paper. I was excited and motivated to set new goals for the new year. And like every year, I started with the same question, “What do I want in Life?”

Last year I spent only a few minutes answering this. The answers were a few million dollars, a big house, expensive cars, lots of traveling, girls, and making the family proud. But this time I spent an entire peaceful evening exploring myself. And I realized I had been fooling myself for the last few years.

What do I want to become?

Life and my goals were simple when I was 5. I wanted to become a superhero. I knew I had the superpowers in me and I just had to explore them. It’s hard to count how many times I tried to shoot web from my wrist or jumped with a hand stretched toward the sky, trying to fly.

A few years later when I turned 10, my goals shifted to something more realistic but less exciting: Prime Minister. I was confident that I would become a Prime Minister and make my country a better place.

Six years ago when I was a 15-year-old boy who now had internet access, changed aims again. Now I wanted to become rich.

Now when I sit quietly and contemplate life, I think I had better goals when I was a child. The 5-year-old me had a better aim in life, he wanted to become a superhero and help people. The 10-year-old wanted to improve the lives of people by becoming a prime minister.

Most importantly the younger me was full of confidence. And here I am, a confused 21-year-old who wants just money. But how did that ambitious little boy with a good heart turn into a greedy piece of sh!t?

We are being manipulated

I remember my 16th birthday, I wasn’t happy like I used to be on that date. I had problems in life and money, I thought, was the ultimate solution. I was on the internet searching for a movie on money and stumbled upon The Wolf of the Wall Street.

After finishing the movie I was like, “This is the kind of life I want!” Immature me failed to take away the right lessons from it, all I saw was a rich man with supercars and hot girls.

And then came the sigma males like Andrew Tate, showing off his rich perfect life on social media. These influencers convinced me that I don’t only want money, I want a lot of it. And quickly.

I was sure that being poor was the main problem of my life. I don’t have a girlfriend because I am poor. My family isn’t proud of me because I don’t earn enough. I am not happy because I don’t have enough money. And the list goes on.

I wanted to earn millions so I could afford a yacht full of girls and vodka. But I neither had the skill to earn that much nor the patience to learn. So like many other desperate people, I started to explore get-rich-quick schemes.

I started day trading and only stopped after emptying the bank account, which led to the most depressing time in my life. Started a drop shipping business and failed. Then started affiliate marketing and failed again.

I was chasing money blindly. I wasn’t even willing to put six months into learning and growing, I was trying the things that would generate a lot of money from the first month (that’s what YouTube gurus promised). Money was my only goal in life until 31 December 2024, when my perspective changed.

What do I want?

Sitting with pen and paper, I asked: “What do I want in life?” A quick answer was a rich life that would make my neighbors jealous. But the answer changed after a long Q&A with myself.

Since then I spent many evenings asking questions like Why do I want to outperform everyone around me? Will money really solve everything? I wanted to live like Jordan Belfort. But was his life worry-free? Not at all. I guess his life was a lot messier than me. Even if I become a multi-millionaire, I will not feel content until I adopt the right mindset.

Currently, the few things I desire are a less crowded locality, more time with family, a nice girl, and exploring the world and myself.

The city I live in is full of noisy people and I feel I need to shift somewhere peaceful. I want to make the bond with my family strong again like the good old days. I have been blaming the lack of money for my boring immobile life but I think I can travel to many places with the money I already have. Last but not least, I also feel a need for a girlfriend with whom I can share my feelings (and my large collection of dirty jokes).

I put the pen and paper down, this was the first time I set no resolutions because I felt I didn’t know myself well enough. For now, I am going to focus on my writing career. It probably won’t make me a millionaire but I enjoy writing and it pays my bills.

I am glad I spent that entire peaceful evening wondering what do I want. If my life changes for the better from here, I would remember that evening as my moment of enlightenment. So, what are you doing today? Can you spare some time for a Q&A with yourself?

Note: This story was first published on my Medium account.