I Only WANT To Want To

When I was a teenager, all the famous movie stars wore full-length mink coats. Some young starlets had a reputation of being willing to do anything to obtain one, and others bought theirs on the installment plan.

In those days before animal rights, having a mink coat represented having "arrived." I envisioned myself decked out in my mink and diamonds going to a fancy party at Hollywood and Vine. One day I took a city bus to Hollywood and Vine. I was crushed! It was virtually a slum--hardly the fantasy place of my diamonds and mink.

Years later, a relative died and left me her full-length fur coat (still before animal rights). Okay, so it wasn't mink. It was a nice coat and very warm. The problem? I lived in the middle of the Mojave Desert and had no use for a full-length fur coat, mink or not. I still had a dream or two about dripping diamonds in my mink at that party at Hollywood and Vine which I KNEW was a fantasy, but that didn't stop me from wanting it to be real. It finally hit me--I didn't want a mink coat (I'd melt in it). I only wanted to want the idea or fantasy of a mink coat and what I imagined it represented.

Darling used to say, "One day I'd like to build a cabin in the woods with my brother (a little more practical than a mink coat on the Mojave Desert, but not much--there are no woods nearby)." For years I listened to him, "When I get rich, when the kids are grown, when I retire..." All those things came to pass and he finally got to build his cabin in the woods with his brother. He complains bitterly about the work..."I'm too old to climb a ladder up to the roof..." In reality, though he does enjoy the fruits of his labor, what he really wanted was the idea or fantasy of building a cabin in the woods with his brother. No aches and pains from having to haul in sheetrock and raise it up to nail on the ceilings and walls--just imagining the fun. No labor, no sweat--just laughs and a magical cabin in the woods. The well wouldn't run dry in a drought year, the plumbing wouldn't back up--not in that fantasy cabin he'd build "someday." The reality is something else.

While dreams and fantasies are nice, sometimes we use them as a substitute for life. I wasted a lot of time wanting that mink coat. I let myself believe I wasn't a success because I didn't have one. The reality was I didn't really want it and I was already successful. If only I had stopped to realize the absurdity in the ridiculous mindset that a mink coat represented success, I wouldn't have spent so much of my life believing I was a failure.

Do you only want to want to? Is that keeping you from thinking of yourself as a successful person?