The Courage Of Wanting Things

And the difference between being grateful and being small.

I spent most of my late teenage years pretending I didn't want anything. Not really. It was safer that way—this careful performance of being low-maintenance, easy-going, the kind of person who could roll with whatever happened. "I'm fine with anything," became my default response to questions about restaurants, weekend plans, life choices. What I didn't realize then was that "fine with anything" was just code for "terrified of admitting what I actually want."

Because wanting things is dangerous. It makes you vulnerable in this raw, exposed way that feels like walking around with your skin turned inside out. When you want something—really want it, not just think it might be nice to have—you're essentially handing the universe a loaded gun and asking it not to shoot you in the chest with disappointment.

I remember the exact moment I realized how much I'd been hiding from my own desires. I was twenty-one, sitting in a restaurant with a much older friend who was planning her wedding, going on and on about flowers and venues and all these details that seemed simultaneously trivial and monumentally important. She paused mid-sentence about centerpieces and looked at me with this expression that was half-curious, half-concerned.

"What do you want your wedding to be like?" she asked.

And I froze. Completely, utterly froze. Not because I didn't know—but because I knew exactly what I wanted, down to the smallest detail, and I was absolutely mortified by the intensity of my own vision. I wanted dancing. I wanted fairy lights and someone who would cry when they saw me walking down the aisle. I wanted a love so obvious that strangers would comment on it. I wanted to be chosen, celebrated, fought for.

"I haven't really thought about it," I lied, taking a sip of my porn star martini to avoid her eyes.

But I had thought about it. I'd thought about it so much it hurt. I'd imagined it in vivid, embarrassing detail—the kind of detail that made me feel pathetic and needy and too much. Because somewhere along the way, I'd learned that wanting things, especially romantic things, especially things that required another person to cooperate with your dreams, was setting yourself up for humiliation.

The shame around wanting runs deep, doesn't it? Especially for women, especially around love and relationships and the audacity of believing you deserve good things. We're taught to be grateful for scraps, to never seem too eager, to play it cool even when our hearts are screaming with want. We're told that desperation is ugly, that need is weakness, that the safest way to avoid disappointment is to convince ourselves we never really wanted it anyway.

I became a master of this particular form of self-protection. I'd date people I wasn't that into because it felt safer than risking rejection from someone who actually mattered. I'd apply for jobs I was overqualified for because the sting of not getting something I really wanted seemed unbearable. I'd make plans with friends and then secretly hope they'd cancel because making an effort felt like exposing too much of myself.

It was exhausting, this constant performance of indifference. Like wearing a mask that never quite fit right, always slipping at the worst moments and revealing glimpses of the person underneath who wanted things so badly it physically hurt.

The first time I admitted out loud that I wanted something—really wanted it, with all the messy desperation that entailed—I was twenty-one and falling in love with someone who seemed completely out of my league. Not just physically, though they were beautiful in that effortless way that made me forget how to form complete sentences. But intellectually, emotionally, socially—they moved through the world with this confidence I envied and this kindness I didn't think I deserved.

We'd been seeing each other casually for a few weeks, and I could feel myself getting attached in that dangerous, all-consuming way that makes you check your phone every thirty seconds and analyze every text for hidden meaning. I knew I was supposed to play it cool, to match their energy, to protect myself by pretending I could take it or leave it.

Instead, I had what can only be described as an emotional breakdown in their kitchen.

"I need to tell you something," I said, standing there in my pajamas at 7 AM like some kind of romantic disaster. "And it's going to sound crazy and you're probably going to want me to leave, but I can't keep pretending anymore."

They looked at me with this expression of genuine concern, probably thinking I was about to confess to a felony or a secret family.

"I really like you," I blurted out, and then immediately wanted to crawl under their refrigerator and die. "Not just casually. Not just having fun. I wake up thinking about you and I go to sleep thinking about you and when you text me my entire day gets better. I want to know what you were like as a kid and what makes you laugh until you can't breathe and whether you'd want to grow old with someone like me. And I know that's terrifying and too much and you probably think I'm insane, but I can't keep acting like I don't want things from you when I want everything."

The silence that followed felt like it lasted approximately seven years. I stood there, vibrating with terror and regret, already composing my dignified exit strategy.

And then they smiled. Not a polite smile, not a let-me-down-easy smile, but this huge, relieved, beautiful smile that made their whole face light up.

"Thank God," they said. "I've been dying to have this conversation but I was terrified you were just having fun."

It turns out they'd been doing their own version of playing it cool, their own careful performance of casual interest, while secretly wanting all the same things I wanted. We'd been two people pretending not to care about each other, each protecting ourselves from a rejection that was never coming.

That night changed something fundamental in me. Not just about love, but about the entire act of wanting. I realized that my careful indifference wasn't protecting me from pain—it was protecting me from joy. From connection. From the possibility that my desires might actually be reciprocated.

Because here's what nobody tells you about wanting things: it's not just about getting them. It's about the courage to believe you deserve them in the first place. It's about the radical act of naming your desires out loud, of taking up space with your dreams, of refusing to shrink yourself down to a more palatable size.

I think about this a lot when I watch other people struggle with their own wanting. The friend who won't apply for her dream job because "they probably wouldn't hire someone like me anyway." The person who stays in a relationship that makes them feel small because "at least they're not alone." The colleague who never speaks up in meetings because "someone else probably has a better idea."

All of us, walking around with these secret lists of things we want but don't dare reach for. All of us, convinced that our desires are too big, too needy, too much.

But what if they're not? What if wanting things-really, truly wanting them with your whole chest, is actually the most honest thing you can do? What if the shame we feel around desire says more about what we've been taught than what we actually deserve?

I started practicing wanting things the way other people practice yoga or meditation. Small things at first. Asking for extra foam in my coffee instead of just accepting whatever they gave me. Telling friends what movie I actually wanted to see instead of deferring to whatever they preferred. Wearing the dress that made me feel beautiful even if it seemed too fancy for the occasion. Reading the books I wanted to read.

These tiny acts of self-advocacy felt revolutionary. Each time I named something I wanted and the world didn't end, I got a little braver. A little more willing to believe that my desires mattered.

The bigger wants took longer to own. The career change I'd been dreaming about for years but convinced myself was impractical. The conversation I needed to have with my family about boundaries. The trip I wanted to take alone because the idea of discovering a new place entirely on my own terms made my heart race with possibility.

Each time I acted on a desire instead of talking myself out of it, something shifted. Not always in the direction I expected—sometimes I got rejected, sometimes things didn't work out, sometimes the thing I thought I wanted turned out to be different than I imagined. But even the disappointments felt more honest than the careful numbness of wanting nothing.

I think the hardest wants to own are the ones that require other people to cooperate. The desire for a relationship that feels like partnership instead of constant negotiation. The longing for friendships that go deeper than surface-level check-ins. The need to be seen and known and chosen by the people who matter to you.

These wants make us vulnerable in ways that feel almost unbearable because they depend on variables we can't control. You can work hard and increase your chances of getting the job you want. You can save money and book the trip you've been dreaming about. But you can't force someone to love you the way you want to be loved. You can't make people understand you or prioritize you or show up for you in the ways your heart craves.

And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet. The alternative—pretending you don't need connection, convincing yourself you're fine with surface-level relationships, accepting less than what makes your soul sing—feels like a kind of slow death. Like spending your whole life hungry but telling everyone you're full.

I've learned that there's a difference between attachment to outcomes and honoring your desires. You can want something deeply while still holding it lightly. You can put yourself out there, ask for what you need, reach for what calls to you, without making your worth dependent on getting it.

This is perhaps the most radical thing I've discovered about the courage of wanting: it's not actually about the getting. It's about the claiming. The moment you acknowledge a desire, own it, stop apologizing for it—something shifts inside you. You become more yourself. More honest. More alive.

I want things now in ways that would have terrified my twenty-year-old self. I want a love that feels like coming home and also like adventure. I want work that matters, that uses my particular combination of skills and passions in ways that contribute something meaningful to the world. I want friendships that can weather disagreement and distance and the messiness of real life. I want to write words that make people feel less alone. I want to travel to places that challenge my assumptions about what's possible. I want to learn new things until the day I die.

Some of these wants feel achievable, others impossibly large. Some I'm actively working toward, others I'm still learning how to name. But all of them feel true. All of them feel like mine.

The shame is still there sometimes—that old voice that tells me I'm asking for too much, that I should be grateful for what I have, that wanting more makes me selfish or greedy or naive. But now I recognize that voice for what it is: fear dressed up as wisdom. The part of me that would rather stay small than risk the vulnerability of reaching.

I've started collecting stories of people who dared to want things. The woman who quit her corporate job at fifty to become a chef. The man who moved across the country for love. The friend who had a baby on her own because she didn't want to wait for someone else's timeline to start the family she'd always dreamed of. The artist who kept painting even when no one was buying. The writer who published the memoir everyone told her was too personal.

All of them, refusing to shrink their desires down to a more acceptable size. All of them, choosing the risk of disappointment over the certainty of regret.

Because maybe that's what courage really is—not the absence of fear, but the decision that your desires matter more than your fear. The willingness to be disappointed rather than to live in the gray space of never really trying. The audacity to believe that your wants, your dreams, your particular vision of what a good life might look like, are worthy of pursuit.

I think about that night in the kitchen, standing there in my pajamas confessing my feelings like some kind of romantic catastrophe. How terrified I was. How sure I was that honesty would ruin everything. How wrong I was about the danger of letting someone see how much I wanted them.

That relationship didn't last forever—relationships rarely do, and that's its own kind of heartbreak and also its own kind of gift. But the lesson did. The understanding that hiding your desires doesn't protect you from pain—it just guarantees you'll never experience the particular joy that comes from being wanted back. From having someone meet your vulnerability with their own. From discovering that the things you thought made you too much actually make you exactly enough for the right person.

Now when I feel that familiar shame creeping in—the voice that tells me to want less, expect less, be less—I try to remember that kitchen confession. The way my whole body shook with the terror and relief of finally telling the truth. The way honesty, even when it's messy and imperfect and delivered at 7AM in pajamas, can be its own kind of magic.

I want things. Deeply, specifically, sometimes desperately. I want them with the full knowledge that I might not get them, that wanting is always a risk, that the universe doesn't owe me anything just because I've been brave enough to name my desires out loud.

But I want them anyway. Because the alternative—a life spent pretending not to care, not to need, not to dream—isn't really living at all. It's just existing in the safest possible way, and safety, I've learned, is overrated when it comes at the cost of your own heart.

So here's to wanting things. To the courage it takes to admit what you desire. To the radical act of believing you deserve good things. To the beautiful, terrifying, absolutely essential practice of letting your heart take up space in your own life.

The world needs people who are brave enough to want things. Who refuse to play small. Who dare to dream in vivid, specific, unreasonable detail. Who choose the risk of disappointment over the certainty of settling.

Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you're reading this and recognizing the careful performance of indifference you've been maintaining. Maybe you're tired of it too.

If so, I dare you to want something. Out loud. With witnesses. Without apology.

Start small if you need to—wear that fancy top, go watch the movie you actually want to see. Work your way up to the bigger, scarier wants. The love that feels like home. The work that uses all of you. The life that makes you excited to wake up.

The world is waiting for your particular brand of wanting. Your specific dreams. Your audacious, beautiful, completely unreasonable desires.

Don't make it wait much longer.