You Want What You Actually Do | #296

May 10th, 2025: Greetings from Koh Samui! I’ve been getting in a writing groove again. I’m working on a short book about money and the pathless path and another more contemplative book tentatively called “Scenes from Asia.” It’s been nice to be writing more regularly again, something I keep doing…

#1 You Want What You Actually Do

A phrase I like to repeat to myself is, “I want what I actually do.”

It’s a useful reminder about how simple I am.

You can steal it. Repeat: “I want what I actually do.”

It would be easy for me to say to myself: “I should care more about business opportunities. I should double down on my StrategyU business.” or “I should push harder with promoting my book, I should do whatever possible to land on the top podcasts.”

But when I look at how I spend my time, I don’t want either of those things. Instead, I’m spending time doing things like writing this new post, hanging out with my family, napping, reading, going to the gym, and hanging out on social media. I am spending so little time doing things to move towards those two aims that I remind myself firmly, “I don’t actually want those things.”

But miswanting remains pervasive even for me. We convince ourselves to want things because we think it’s what we are supposed to be doing or more common, we get hijacked by the desires of others.¹ I convinced myself I wanted to be a consulting partner because it seemed sensible and I didn’t actually have experience following my own interests. A lot of times our wants are underdeveloped simply because we haven’t tried enough things.

But often, there are clues. Like the report I had so much fun writing while at BCG. Or the articles I wrote for fun in college and grad school. Or the seven different blogs I launched and maintained over ten years. Or the mentoring and teaching I was doing for an undergrad consulting group instead of my day job. While I actually wanted what I was doing, pursuing my career, these wants were much more important. I was doing them despite any upside in terms of money or status. They were harder to fake.

this can be weird and confusing

There is a more confusing side of wanting what we actually do. Sometimes we are frustrated about what we seem to want. We go to war against our revealed preferences.

We claim to want more money but never try to actually make money.

We know our life is falling apart because we work too much but we can’t actually ever stop working.

We have been talking about writing that book for ten years, that creative masterpiece, but when given an option, we choose clear financial opportunities.

Some people call this our shadow. It is the part of us that remains a mystery to us. It is nudging us to do things that might make us feel safe. The person who never actually makes money may be self-sabotaging because they actually feel safe if they are consistently failing in the same way.

The way out of this is to remind ourselves, we want what we actually do.

Yes, the bad stuff we think we don’t want too.

Sometimes I use social media a lot. I have no story in my head that says this is a bad use of time. I often tell myself, “yes Paul you actually want this.” I will then pause, and say to myself, “okay how can I do this while having more fun?”

So here we are. Still posting. I’m having fun, are you?

I see people complaining about how much they use social media. Stop! You want this. Just figure out why you want it.

Me? I love the satisfaction of feeling understood. Of finding others who have a similar desire to write and remix ideas. And probably the dopamine hit of being seen as smart. It’s great and fine. I am human. I want this.

Have you tried just admitting you want something badly, too?

More simply, there are no problems to be fixed. You want everything you are doing!

and to others too

In my twenties, I was convinced that everyone actually wanted to feel great about work. Whenever I was in a bad situation at work, I would do whatever possible to change things. I hated feeling stuck at work. I wanted to change jobs because I actually did, several times.

So when people around me complained about their jobs, I assumed they had the same desperate desire to shake things up. I’d aggressively offer help:

“When are we going to redo your resume?”
“Do you want me to send you some ideas for jobs?”
“Do you want to meet this person working in a similar role?”

Most would resist and eventually, I would move on.²

They wanted what they were actually doing, which was staying at their jobs.

This principle allows you to take other people seriously. And not try to change them.

People want what they actually do.

Look at how people spend their time.

Those who spend time with loved ones. They want that

Those who spend a lot of time online. They want that.

Those who always prioritize status. They want that.

The person who complains about their job all the time but never does anything about it? They want to remain in that job.

we can’t fix people because they are doing what they want already

People reach out to me all the time now asking me to talk to a family member or friend, “Can you please talk to my brother? He really needs to read your writing.”

My response now is always the same, “No, but you can send him my stuff and if he actually wants to connect, he will reach out.”

The only way through is for better understanding and alignment with these actions.

For years, I told people I wanted to escape work. This was bullshit until it wasn’t. For almost ten years, I wanted the comfort of not having to make a decision to bet on myself. Now I actually am designing a life not centered around work. I’ve come to terms with the fact that yeah, I really do want a life that doesn’t put work first.

It’s a weird thing to want in today’s world, especially when I could make more money by denying this want. But the good thing is that I can just love the hell out of this desire, a desire to try to make it work on an unconventional path, to see it as a cool part of myself, and move on with the experimentation of trying to continue to make it work.

Owning our wants is hard, though, especially if you don’t want what everyone else wants. The default path tries to convince us early in life that “You definitely want what everyone else seems to want.” It was pretty early on when I realized I didn’t want the things everyone else wanted. I remember early in my career, talking to someone working at my consulting firm, that I couldn’t imagine worrying about money if I made more than $100k a year. He replied, “You’re crazy. It’s far too little. You need more than $500k a year in income to feel secure.” This person is in a really impressive position right now and, by my estimates, making a lot more than $500k. I fully believe that he actually does want what he is doing.

You don’t have to beat yourself up for wanting what you actually do if it doesn’t fit in with what you think you are supposed to do.

For me, my alternative path does appear to be working, for almost eight years. Still, I sit down each quarter and look at my finances. Am I comfortable with how things are going? For now, yes. But if I wasn’t, I’d have to come to terms with the fact that I probably wanted some financial risk. That I was enjoy being a little reckless, and flying a little too low.

Would I then decide to change course? I don’t know. Because for now, it’s clear I don’t actually want to spend much time thinking about it.

Some more reads like this:

Escape Shouldlandia | #255

The Golden Algorithm & Dancing With Uncertainty | #265

How To Play the Creator Game | #240

Become Nerdsniped | #220

Thanks for hanging out here…

Which I’ve been doing since 2015. I’ve somehow figured out how to hack a living doing things like this.

If you like what you read here, you’ll probably enjoy my books The Pathless Path and Good Work:

grab them here

If you’d like to meet others on “pathless paths”, you can join The Pathless Path Community.

Some things I endorse: Crowdhealth, an alternative to US health insurance; Kindred, a home-sharing app; Collective for handling your S-Corp accounting needs; and Nat Eliason’s Build Your Own AI Apps course

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1.

Luke Burgis

has a great book on this, aptly titled “Wanting”

2. I am still quite happy that many people did take me up on my offers. Several people made dramatic shifts in their career situations. This still makes me quite happy.