how to want more without hating what you have

i’ve been thinking about the strange emotional choreography involved in being both grateful and dissatisfied at the same time. how many of us perform appreciation like it’s a condition for desiring anything further. how we try to stay grounded in our lives while also imagining better ones. there’s a soft but persistent tension in modern adulthood: the push to be mindful and content and spiritually evolved, while also ambitious and hungry and striving. the culture talks out of both sides of its mouth. one moment, it’s telling you to fall in love with the life you already have. the next, it’s asking you to design a life so magnetic and optimized that you’ll never want to escape it. and caught in between all this messaging is a quiet, tired person who is trying to do her best. she is making her bed and showing up for work and being emotionally available and paying attention to the little things. she is practicing gratitude while secretly wondering if she’s allowed to want more.

we don’t talk enough about the grief of wanting. about how longing can feel disloyal. especially when you have a life that looks full. a partner, a child, a city that people romanticize. a fridge that holds your favorite yogurt, a bookshelf you once dreamed of, a set of daily rhythms you fought hard to build. there are mornings when i look around and think: this is what i always wanted. and still, there is a pull toward something else. not always bigger, not always shinier. just different. freer. more expansive in some way that i can’t articulate. and instead of honoring that instinct, i shrink it. i smother it under to-do lists. i tell myself it’s indulgent. i convince myself that to want more would be to reject what i already have. and that, somehow, would make me a bad person.

but that logic is flawed. and it’s exhausting. because it treats desire like a betrayal instead of a signal. it treats ambition like a threat to your moral character. it turns growth into guilt. and it makes no room for the possibility that you can love something deeply and still wish it felt different.

some of this confusion is cultural. we’re a generation that inherited both the language of self-optimization and the leftovers of post-war modesty. we are praised for being driven, but punished for being too aspirational. we are encouraged to dream, but only if we stay humble and likable while doing it. the people who raised us often found security in stability, in staying grateful, in not asking for too much. and now we’re here, trying to self-actualize on the internet while holding onto that same emotional inheritance: be grateful, be grounded, be nice.

but what if wanting more doesn’t make you ungrateful? what if it’s just a sign that you’re awake to your own evolution?

i think the real issue isn’t the wanting. it’s the way we’ve been conditioned to believe that our current lives must be either perfect or problematic. we’re not taught to sit in nuance. we’re not given models for what it means to desire change without condemning the present. we assume that to grow, we have to reject. and that’s where the pain lives: in the binary. in the belief that you must either be content or ambitious, but never both. in reality, you can hold reverence for your current life while still making space for something else. you can love your home and still want to live in a city that feels more aligned. you can appreciate your partner and still long for deeper emotional intimacy. you can be proud of your work and still crave more creative freedom. the existence of longing doesn’t mean you failed at gratitude. it just means you’re human.

and yet, because we live in a culture obsessed with visibility and achievement, we often confuse momentum with meaning. we chase goals that look good online instead of asking whether they feel good in our bodies. we seek validation in numbers and metrics and aesthetics. and in doing so, we sometimes forget how to listen. not to our mentors or coaches or role models, but to ourselves. to that small voice inside that says: i want to feel safe. i want to feel spacious. i want to be met fully in this lifetime. for women especially, the cost of wanting has always been higher. we’re rewarded for being selfless, agreeable, emotionally generous. we are taught to accommodate others’ needs before naming our own. to be content with what we’re given, and to make it look effortless. to desire is to risk being seen as difficult, dramatic, demanding. and so we learn to package our dreams more softly. we say things like “i’m just playing with the idea” or “maybe one day” or “i’m okay with how things are, really.” we say these things because we don’t want to seem ungrateful. because we know that people love a woman who glows with quiet humility more than one who glows with audacity.

but there’s a difference between being humble and being afraid. between being content and being silenced. and maybe the work is in learning to name your wants without apology. not because you’re entitled to every dream, but because you’re allowed to explore what life could feel like if you stopped editing yourself down to what others can handle. i think of desire now as a kind of internal compass. not always accurate, not always easy to read—but always worth noticing. when i ignored it, i became numb. i stayed in rooms that made me smaller. i over-functioned in roles that drained me. i told myself it was just a phase, that i needed to be more grateful, that others had it worse. but numbness isn’t gratitude. it’s dissociation. and staying small doesn’t serve anyone, especially not the version of you that is trying to grow.

there have been times i wanted more because i was comparing my life to someone else’s. and every time, the desire felt hollow. it didn’t land in my body. it didn’t feel nourishing. but when the wanting came from a slower place—a place of emotional truth, of inner alignment—it was different. it wasn’t loud. it wasn’t urgent. it felt like a remembering. like i was circling back to a self i had abandoned too early. and that’s the version of more i trust now. the one that comes without panic. the one that doesn’t ask me to burn my life down to feel alive. the one that whispers rather than shouts. that asks: what if you just made this one part of your life a little more honest? because maybe the answer isn’t to want less. maybe it’s to want better. to want with discernment. to want in a way that honors your past without being defined by it.

i’m not interested in aesthetic wanting. i don’t care about “main character energy” or bucket list checkboxes. i care about wanting as a tool for self-return. i care about the kind of wanting that asks: where do i feel most like myself? what kind of mornings make me feel anchored? who do i become in the presence of people who actually see me? what systems would make my life feel kinder, not just more productive? and i’ve learned this: the most sustainable kind of growth comes from care, not criticism. the kind of care that says, i want more rest because my body deserves peace. i want better money habits because i’m tired of living in survival mode. i want a gentler schedule because rushing makes me resentful. i want friendships that nourish me because i’m done performing emotional labor for people who don’t reciprocate.

this isn’t about arriving at some perfect life. it’s about relating to your existing one with more softness. it’s about refusing to shame yourself for dreaming. it’s about learning to want more without making your current self wrong. you don’t need to hate your now to build your next. because here’s the truth: the version of you that held everything together when things were messy—that version deserves tenderness. she deserves to be honored, not criticized. she kept the lights on. she did what she could. and even if she wasn’t thriving, she got you here.you’re allowed to want more. not because your current life is broken. but because you are alive, and your aliveness will always be bigger than your current circumstances. it’s okay to expand. it’s okay to crave. it’s okay to move toward what feels more like home, even if no one else understands it yet.

just don’t forget that the soil you're growing from is sacred, too.