Oftentimes, people say that we want everything we can get out of life. Lofty dreams and ambitions are part and parcel of surviving the daily grind and gives each of us an objective to live from day to day, in pursuit of the seemingly unachievable goals. Yes, I said seemingly unachievable. That is because we all want things that can be achieved if we only knew how to get them. I believe that is what Ben Stein was trying to impart upon us when he was quoted as having said that ” The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” Why should a person decide upon what he wants out of life? Mainly because by deciding to achieve what you want, you consciously move towards achieving that goal. By deciding upon what you want to achieve, you assure yourself of personal satisfaction and happiness once you reach the goal that you set for yourself.
I would like to offer myself up as an example of this quote. Being a typical teenager, my life is full of consumer-driven needs and wants. I want the latest iPod, I want the latest fashion, the latest gadgets, I want everything. But, I also know that my parents have financially limited capabilities and can only provide so much for me in terms of my whims and caprices. So then I had to stop and ask myself, ” What is it that I really want? Am I prepared to do anything to get it? How do I plan to pay for it? Will it be worth it in the end?”
Taking paper and pen in hand, I listed down my needs as opposed to my wants and decided that my needs outweighed my wants in life. It turns out that what I really needed was also something that I wanted to have. I needed a new computer to replace the run-down one that I had been using in the past. After careful analysis, I decided that the computer I needed and wanted was a laptop.
Having decided upon what I wanted, I was now in a position to look into how I could afford to purchase the item I want. I had some money in savings and earned a decent amount of pocket money doing after-school chores, and after talking to my parents, they agreed to shoulder a portion of the cost as well. So off I went and purchased the laptop after 3 months of saving up my share of the amount I had agreed upon with my parents.
Now, I am happy to report that I have achieved a sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment from being able to decide upon what I wanted in life, going for it, and eventually getting it. I am happy because I have learned that all-important first step in figuring out how to get the things I want out of my life.
Throughout the steps I took in order to decide upon what I want to have in life and how to achieve it, I learned lessons in differentiating between needs and wants, learned how to handle my finances in order to achieve an end goal, and finally, got my feet wet in the pool known as independence because I learned how to make a responsible decision and how to live up to my commitments in the process.
Indeed, by deciding upon what I wanted to achieve in life, I learned how, in the future, I can achieve even more. I just have to make one decision at a time and follow it through to the very end of the process. It isn’t hard to do when you put your mind to it, Right Mr. Stein?