The Three Things Everyone Really Wants

And You Do, Too

One of the strangest things about life is that, deep down, whether or not we admit it, we hunger for the same things, no matter who we are, or where we’re from, or what we do. Not material things, of course. But nor what we’re taught to desire: money, sex, fame, and power, all of which are just easy ways to pretend we don’t really want something deeper, truer, more meaningful and lasting and significant and worthy from this life. Pretending all that, which is living a lie, leads to great inner pain which, if it’s not tended to, only grows. I’ll come back to that.

To be seen, to be held, and to be known. They’re the three things everyone wants. I can prove it to you with a sentence: imagine you had all the material stuff in the world you ever wanted, all the money, sex, power, and so on, now double it, now double it again, but no one — not a single soul — ever really saw you, held you, or knew you. I’d bet you’d be depressed, hollow, and broken in just a year or two, because every bit of pleasure would only hurt that much more.

The strange truth is this. Though these are the three things everyone really wants, almost no one knows how to give them (except maybe babies and puppies), and so the world spins in pain, anger, shame, and rage. Let’s consider it for a moment. How often do people really see you? Hold you? Know you? What happens when they don’t? You feel a little ashamed, angry, afraid, or guilt, don’t you? And so, in every single interaction that we have, from the smallest to the biggest, to most trivial to the most significant, aren’t these three things all that we’re really looking for? So as a result, those tiny few that can give us these three magical things we immediately gush over, adore, and celebrate, saying they’re full of “charisma” or “warmth” or “energy”, and so on.

The trick — that’s a terrible shorthand, so let us say instead the gift — in life therefore is to give them generously, freely, with abandon. If you can see people, hold people, and know people, quite simply, people will love you. You will be able to “relate to people”, as the pop-psycho lingo goes, but it’s better to say that you’ll feel more alive, overflowing with a sense of really being here, now, this, you. Not because you are seen, held, or known “back”. You often won’t…

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