What If We Rethink What We Want

Why I’m Editing My Bucket List, Not Erasing It

I’ve been thinking a lot about wanting lately.

The world teaches us to want more. Bigger jobs. Fatter paychecks. Nicer cars. Fancier vacations. The latest watch. The remodeled kitchen. The next promotion. We’re wired to crave it, and the scarcity loop feeds it to us. Conditioned to chase what’s next.

And honestly…I’m no different.

I’ve felt it in my own life, in a tug-of-war that doesn’t always have a clear answer. A few years ago, I walked away from a career that I enjoyed, that paid well, that by most standards looked like “success.” I found a firm that aligned more with what I wanted at that time and a desire to do work that felt meaningful.

And then that shifted.

This itch of “maybe I should build something of my own.”
And now here I am. Doing just that. Building something I believe in, something I hope helps others, yet still circling back to the same question:

Did I make a mistake walking away? Am I just wanting more again, just in a different direction? Was I chasing something on both sides of the decision, without fully seeing it?

It’s disorienting when you realize that wanting doesn’t necessarily leave you when you change environments. It just changes its shape and how it shows up in your head.

Seneca said, “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

I’ve always liked that quote. It rings true until you really sit with it. What about wanting more time with your kids? More meaningful moments with your spouse? More experiences that make you feel alive? More impact on people around you?

Is that “craving”? Or is that living?

That’s where I’ve been sitting lately. In a space trying to figure out the difference between the hollow want and the worthy want. Between chasing things that leave you feeling emptier… and pursuing things that expand life in the best ways.

What Counts as “Wanting Too Much”?

I don’t think wanting is the enemy.

There’s a real difference between chasing material things that fade or for the sake of impressing others…and chasing things that expand us. The dinner table moments. The hard races you train for. The trips that feel like forever memories. Wanting more of that doesn’t feel like a problem. In fact, it feels like the good stuff.

But where’s the line? Can the chase for meaningful things turn into the same trap as chasing stuff?

Arthur Brooks’ Wake-Up Call

Arthur Brooks, the Harvard happiness researcher and one of my favorites, had his own reckoning. At 50, he looked back at his 40th birthday bucket list; all those career goals, accolades, achievements and realized…he’d done it. Crossed every single one off.

And he wasn’t happier. He was actually less happy. His wants had multiplied faster than his life could deliver. Every milestone raised the bar.

So Brooks reframed his approach. He made a reverse bucket list. Wrote down his biggest wants, looked them in the eye, and said: “Maybe I get it. Maybe I don’t.” Then he crossed them off not because he achieved them, but because he detached from them.

Nine years later, he said he was happier than he’d ever been.

Naval Ravikant summed it up this way: “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”

If you want to go deeper into Brooks’ research, here’s a solid interview and article in The Atlantic on the reverse bucket list.

But Here’s Where I Struggle

And this is where I wrestle with it.

I’m not sure I fully agree. I’m not sure I want to want less. And to be fair I don’t think that’s exactly what Arthur Brooks is saying either. But it’s where my mind goes when I sit with this idea.

Because I don’t want to want less time with my boys. I don’t want fewer adventures with my wife. I don’t want to not chase the hard race or faster time.

I don’t think the goal is no desire. I think it’s better desire. Less craving for things that don’t actually matter. More hunger for the things that do.

The trick, at least for me, is learning to tell the difference. And staying focused on the ones that make life richer, not just busier.

A Reminder on a Drive Home

This all came rushing back to me a few weeks ago, driving home from a lacrosse tournament in Maryland this weekend. Six hours across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; the boys in the back watching movies, audiobook on(which, if I’m honest, was probably not interesting to my wife).

I was listening to The Underworld, a book about the ocean by Susan Casey, when two moments overlapped.

We passed the exit for the Flight 93 Memorial. The place where regular people changed the course of history with unimaginable courage. The words came back to me:

“Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” The last words that were heard from Todd Beamer. One of the hero’s on that flight.

At the same time, the book told a story about a man who, as a kid, accidentally released the parking brake on his parents’ car. It crashed into a tree. He nearly died. But in that moment, he said, he realized how fragile life is. And from there, he lived it differently.

It brought me back to my own moment: 9/11. 9:03 AM. My life flipped upside down. It put me on a path of chasing hard things, pushing myself, saying yes to adventure because tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.

Then came kids, and that pace shifted a bit. Rightfully so. But on that drive home, I felt it again: the tug toward more. Not more stuff. More life.

Maybe It’s Not Either/Or

I don’t think it has to be a choice between giving up goals and living detached, or endlessly chasing some high.

Maybe it’s both.

I still want big things on my list…a marathon, a 100-mile mountain bike race, hard things that push me, that make me better. But I’m learning to hold them differently. Knowing some of them will happen, some might not, and that’s okay.

Because I also want the little things that make life feel full: more road trips, more quiet drives with my wife and boys, more stories around the table, more moments where people feel seen and loved.

I’m not throwing out the bucket list. I’m just editing it. Less chasing. More choosing.
Less proving. More living.

The Research

The research is pretty clear on this:

• Materialism = lower well-being. Studies show that valuing material goods correlates with lower life satisfaction, more anxiety, and more depression. Here’s a good overview of that from the Self-Determination Theory research.

• Experiences = more enduring happiness. Money spent on experiences provides more lasting happiness than money spent on things. Here’s a summary of his research.

• Giving = happiness. Simple acts like buying someone a coffee or giving to charity actually increase happiness more than buying yourself something. TIME covers this well here.

Where I Land

Maybe the point isn’t to have no wants. Maybe it’s to choose them better.

Because when I look at my life, I don’t regret what I didn’t buy. I regret the moments I didn’t make time for. And when I think about what I want more of. Presence, not possessions.

So yeah, I still want things. But I want things that matter.

More memories, fewer trophies. More connection, less comparison. More moments that last, fewer things that fade.