Wants

The engine of the holiday season as we know it is  . . . “wants.”   A common question in our conversations is: what do you want for Christmas?  Retailers hope that you want to part with your currency or incur debt to get what you and others want for Christmas.

We human beings have wants.   The wants may be expectations, desires, longings, cravings, obsessions or just plain wants.   The intensity of the want corresponds with the intensity of our emotions.   Some of our unfulfilled wants can cause must pain and distraction to the rest of the business of life.

As children we wanted the coolest toys but would often settle for something that we could at least enjoy.    As adults, what we want varies.    Maybe we want things.  Maybe we want our families to behave in the same room together and be happy.  Maybe we want to get everyone just the perfect gift.  Maybe we want the deceased loved one to come back into the room and make the holiday good again.

Some of our wants are realistic and some are just fantasies that will never happen.  We sometimes cannot tell the difference based on how much emotionally close we are to the situation.  Emotional closeness to matters takes away the objectivity and judgment and so there is a blur in whether a want is realistic or fantasy.  

Sometimes we do not learn what our wants are until we have the negative feelings.  We may not have realized how strong the want was until we have gotten distracted with the thoughts.  Detangling this emotional web is difficult because emotional thinking is not always clear thinking.

Wants in terms of Grief

Grief has my thoughts when it comes to wants.  Grief and wants come together in the forms of regrets and the act of holding on.

When we think of our regrets, we think about what we would have wanted of ourselves in a previous situation.   When people grieve or are stuck in grief, they are usually regretting not having done something.   They are expressing anger towards themselves.

In my profession I have seen people get creative with the regret.    People who take things personally let their imaginations get creative with everything they could have and would have done . . . but did not do.   (Hindsight is viciously 20-20)

Another kind of want I have seen lately is the want of hanging on.  Many people have pictures plastered of the gone loved one all over their residences. Husbands or wives keep closets and garages and attics of their deceased spouse’s possessions untouched.  Some people keep their loved ones’ ashes on mantles and shelves in plain sight.  People keep tons of books from degrees that they have achieved but no longer use.  They do not want to let go.   

At the holidays many of us we feel pain because of the unresolved grief and loss.  We reflect on why we feel terrible.  We want to feel better.   The question is what do we do to feel better?  

The matter of what we want does not necessarily have an easy solution due to the matter of emotions.  We are often greatly invested in the want.  There is nothing particularly rational about the want—it is a piece of us—and we do not want to lose that.  

The solution to the want is not necessarily a quick one.  Sometimes the solution is surrendering what we want, because continuing to hold onto it causes more pain than letting go.  Sometimes holding onto a want holds us back in our lives as to what we can be and what we can do.  It is often a matter of choosing what kind of pain we will feel.

I hopefully do not leave you with a glib answer as to what to do.  I am assuming that you are reading this because you wanted something in the form of coping or relief. 

Maybe you need permission to want to feel terrible.  You have my permission if it matters to you, because we as humans feel terrible at times . . . even at holidays. We all have terrible circumstances at times.  Just be warned . . . continuing to feel terrible often turns out to be a choice (whether you intended it or not).     You maybe needing to make another choice.