Is It Okay to Want More Out of Life?

"I want more," he said."Don’t be ungrateful," his parents reply.

If you recognise the conversation above, you understand what it’s like to have everything you have ever wanted and want more. The simple act of wanting more creates a form of guilt in so many of us—how can we be so ungrateful to ask for more? The world is handed to each of us away from war, famine, suffering in general—for those of us lucky enough to have been born in to the so called "first world." The blessings that we have been given are ridden with something toxic. The toxicity that comes from it forces us to push our desires in to the very core of ourselves—to hide them away. Our desires and our passions often mean that we want more than what we have, so locking them away makes us not sound ungrateful and stops us from sounding like the brats that our parents warned us we would become, but at what cost?

"Something you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life?" the father asks his 20-year-old daughter."Maybe not, I’ve only been working there a couple of months," she replies, the writer inside of her head pulling her hair out and trying to push her own words through her mouth—but nothing seems to form between her lips.

People will have a job, whether it’s a nine to five with room to grow or a dead end that earns them enough money for their lives. Either of these things aren’t a bad thing and for a lot of people, possibly for the majority, this is what they want out of life. The job and opportunities are perfect for a lot of people, whether that’s the experience of their career, the lifetime goals they’re working towards or simply the money. Whatever the reason, if you love what you’re doing then you should keep doing it. However, some people are in jobs that other people would adore, or jobs that feel too much like walking away from what they want, instead of towards the future they always wanted. They have a need for something more, something that fulfils the passion they have, something that gives them a purpose outside of where they have found themselves.

This realisation is a step closer to what these people want in life. Yet somehow this realisation forms a guilt that stops us from admitting who we are and what we want. A person cannot tell another what they want from their lives because it’s hard to put in to words how much they want this one amazing thing. It’s hard to convince someone else to understand why you want to do something out of the norm, why you want to give up security to pursue something that isn’t set in stone. A lot of the time you’ll find yourself lying, not in any extreme way—more like deliberating the truth. It creates a conversation like the above, where you know the answer, but don’t quite have the courage to tell people that it’s what you want out of life. Stumbling over your words when all you want to do is tell the truth. Then for the next few years you’re wondering why you didn’t answer the way you wanted to, why the conversation didn’t go like this;

"Something you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life?" the father asks his 20-year-old daughter."Definitely not. I want to be a writer and I believe that I am going to be. It’ll come with rejection and failure but what’s life without that? This is what I want from my life," she replies, holding her head high and her heart between her fingertips.

It’s always okay to want more than what you’re handed.

It should be more encouraged, because the sooner we settle, the sooner we become done with our lives. Once we’re settled, we can predict what is going to happen for the next 80 years, to some people that’s a life jacket, to others it’s a straight jacket. For those of us who are doing a Houdini and escaping that straight jacket before the timer runs down—we need to start being proud of wanting more. It doesn’t make you selfish or unappreciative, it means you have a reason. This reason could be anything, but it is usually a risk, and often it’s a risk worth taking because it’s one step closer towards the goal that is weighing on your heart. The goal that is so heavy, the only way that it is going to become lighter is if you become stronger and you’re willing to pursue it.

"Life has been a hike, but the breaths I took every time I hit those snow-capped mountains—that breath of life. Those were the ones that made me feel most alive, because the only way I could stand in that snow, was because my heart rested in my hands for the entire journey," said the 93-year-old to a campfire of 20-somethings on the verge of finding what they want out of life.

Be the person telling the rest of the world how you lived with everything you had inside of you, instead of holding on to the key, waiting for the day you can open the box before it’s too late. Don’t quit your job tomorrow to pursue something that won’t make you money to survive tomorrow but keep working on your passion until it can. Continue to believe that there is more than what you have been given, because there is, and you know there’s more because you’re heading towards it. Wanting more is not a crime, and the more we let the opinions of others crawl beneath our skins, the more hesitant we become in our abilities, in our passions, in ourselves.