Sometimes the hardest thing to figure out is what you really want.  You start life by just wanting to be fed. Then the concept of enjoyment comes in.  So you want to play.  Or watch something that brings you enjoyment. As the years settle in, you start to realize that you have to do things because you are expected to do them, despite what you want.  Like school.  Eating vegetables, or food that's good for you but not particualrly tasty.  Or the dentist.

The comes that thing called... decision. 

You are asked to decide things like, what kind of clothes you want to wear.  What classes to take. Who you want to make friends with.  To take drugs or not.  To drink.  Who to have sex with for the first time, if that is even a decision you get to make (but want to make). Soon, if you are so inclined, you are deciding what college to go to.  What major to take.  What career option you want to pick looking forward. 

Often what happens is that in the scramble to make decisions - to look for the things you want, and the things you are expected to do, and to find a niche in the world that will bring you money - what you really want becomes buried in a very grey sea.  Some people poo-poo that, believing they know with absolute certainty what they want.  Others, have no idea whatsoever. 

Today, I don't know where I fall in that spectrum.  I have been at both ends of it.  I have known exactly what I want.  And I have been clueless.  The powerless feeling of the latter is unsettling.  And right now, I am feeling a little unsettled.  But not because I don't know what I want.  I believe I do.  But I have never faced the situation where what I want, may not be the best option for me and for the people I care about.  Where what I want makes it all worse in the end, despite what feels all good now.  To the degree of it being life-changing. 

I am like Rick Blaine at the end of "Casablanca," who doesn't want to let Elsa go, but who sees the greater good in having her leave with Victor Lazlo. Of course, I think he's wrong - he is making himself and Elsa more miserable and it's only Victor who makes out in that scenario.  Or does he? After all, he's now with a wife who really loves someone else.  Maybe Rick's decision makes them all losers.  Maybe the famed ending of "Casablanca" is really flawed and a cheat if executed the same in real life.

Suddenly, I see it in a new light...

What about you:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-dGYjSq5k

Maybe at the end of the day, the only answer is... do what you want.  And don't apologioze for it. As long as you're not setting out to purposely hurt someone. 

My thought for today...