How to know what you really want | Luke Burgis | Big Think

What do you find most fulfilling?

what if I try to look for moments I have felt fulfilled, and I find nothing?

I want peace, contentment, perfect health, harmonious relationships and be able to do what I want when I want.

People who do not know what they want, usually have already lost a sense of who they are. A bit of a circular advice there.

Very interesting

This video could be summarized on "think more about what you really want". In my opinion there was no practical advice.

Notice that nothing he said in this video is objectively real. This is the con of psychology that even it's practitioners are totally blind to just how stupid and empty what they say is. You need to mind your life. You need to listen to who you are. What the hell does that mean. Listening is the act of hearing sounds. What is minding your life mean in practical terms. How do you do that exactly? How do you go on a journey? That's another metaphor. Which direction do I walk? Or maybe do I climb trees like it's the stupidest effing thing we do as humans give each other answers that are cryptic because they're metaphors so that you walk away and you interpret from it. Whatever you think those things mean since they cannot mean literally what he said. You can't mind your life literally. So you're going to go away and say well. I guess I have to do these things because he hasn't actually told you anything

It started very well... but when I heard ``your life telling you something`` I stopped.
Life does not tell us anything, as life is not a storyteller. We are instead. And the story we are telling ourselves is entirely up to how we think (or how we do not think).

Autistics dont look without, we look within- antagonistic desire

Make a revised edition with different generations. What's your life goal? Year 2500-Intersellar space travel, year 1200-priest, year 10 ad-emperor 😂

I hope you provide translation into Arabic

(FACTS OVA FEELINGS) DESIRE Does Not Erase FREEWILL r FREEDOM wen Eu Perceive a a Desire Inside Urself Eu r AWARE of it at tha point Eu r Tuuly Free because Now bein Aware of it Eu Stand in the Position of Choice Eu r Free to Decide what to do in Response to tha Desire

That I can live simply (or simply live) now that I am retired!

I don't know what I'm listening to

Pleasure! Next question!😉

For those who want to know why we should have desires in the first place, it's because progress = happiness. It's not the attainment that is the fulfillment, but it's progress towards them. Life becomes an adventure. Letting go of them is not inherently a good thing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't practice gratitude for what you have.

good

this is gold "We look to models of desire, people that help show us what is worth wanting."

We are the product of other people's desires. It is called as mimetic desire.
2 kinds of Desire. Thin and Thick.
- Thick desires are rock solid and are in us from generations. Desires like love, respect, beauty etc.
- Thin desires are those which come and go with trends or influence of others. Like new gadget, cars, houses...

"Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I have to listen to my life telling me who I am"

Desire mimeric - we look for people to show us what is worth wanting
Two kinds of desires thin and thick

Thick - layers of rock , it can be related to who we are

Thin - it can be the things that can be here today and gone tomorrow it can be gone it's not rooted.

Man is

Why won't you use the indication "for people who had been lobotomized only"?

Desire is the cause of all miseries... Gautam buddha

I found the pattern - good at tutoring - but can't figure out a way to earn a living with it.

"listen to [your] life, telling you who you are." Love it! ❤️

we look at models when learning, seeking desires

types of desires
1. thin - highly mimetic, epheral, not rooted in us hardly, eg. like leafs on tops of rock,
2. thick - deeply rooted since our childhood eg. shaped by our parents

able to identify the 2, listening crucial.
listen to whom i am, go through ur life what makes u fullfilled, theres a pattern

We know what we want, but there are too many ways to get it.

Oh goodness, I'm so happy others have words for this!

All my life I've called mimetic desires ghosts. It didn't matter if the person was alive or not, I just knew I felt a part of them guide me. I also knew that it felt bad to do those ghosts wrong. In essence, ghosts to me are the remnants of human consciousness in our own psyche that we can understand and build expectations off of.

I've had so many crisises (crisis-is?) wondering who I really was, and if it was possible to ever be happy with so many ghosts so strongly affecting my sense of self worth. Expressing this openly has allowed me to create and maintain beautiful friendships. In a letter to one of my best friends, I recently came of the conclusion that we are all quilts, a patch work of everyone else. I realized that no one really knows how to be human, and that we model ourselves off of others.

That thinking has allowed me to view my anxieties about fulfillment with the love and grace I try to extend to others. I love my ghosts, but I also know that in the end, they're just that, ghosts. My body loves the sun and movement; my heart loves humans and their lives; and my mind loves challenges and biology. I'm studying public health in hope of becoming a field epidemiologist!


I honor those who love me by honoring myself.

Thanks for the video, I know I'll need to talk to my friends to be able to grasp mimetic desires, but at least I have a word for it other than ghosts!

What would you consider a desire that is life-long; before even mimetic influence can take hold?

We are electrical chemical beings….rewarded with chemicals. Those rewards have evolved over thousands of years to be the rewards that favor reproduction and life. Happy is a chemical. Love is a chemical. Bonding is a chemical. Hunger is a chemical. How our receptors sense and interpret those chemicals is due to evolution.

LISTEN 👂 to yourself...Are not the product of other people's Desires❓

I want total

Its hard to say you really want something unless you've really experienced having it before.

Desire is the cause of suffering .

Thich and thin desires is one way to gauge human motivation, the fact that humans are so receptive to suggestions makes us too much vulnerable in falling into errors quite often & this is what Satan is so excited about. Inspite of our own unique individualities we do share broad range of similarities in the basic motivations and drives. From Islamic perspective as Quran mentions in Chapter 30( Romans, verse 30)- So set thy purpose (O Muhammad) for religion as a man by nature upright - the nature (framed) of Allah, in which He hath created man. There is no altering (the laws of) Allah's creation. That is the right religion, but most men know not -
So as per Quranic perspective humans have certain nature (or fitrah in Arabic) inbuilt in them.
So we can say humans are born with a certain personality.
As mentioned in Chapter 95, "We have certainly created man in the best of stature; Then We return him to the lowest of the low,
Except for those who believe and do righteous deeds, for they will have a reward uninterrupted,
So what yet causes you to deny the Recompense? Is not Allah the most just of judges?"

The world which we inhabit does influence our choices & in todays world all kinds of desires are marketed to us all the time.
The problem with clinging ourselves to whims which are thrown at us is that it restricts our personality to a tiny shell & our whole psyche/experiences are not fulfilling. We are left either unsatisfied our agitated by any idea that seems to challenge our way of life. Quran mentions , "We have indeed made whatever is on earth as an adornment for it, in order to test which of them is best in deeds." But the desire of petty things of this world can never be put to place until man doesn't realize his actual objective.
As Quran mentions," Are you satisfied with the present life, (Literally: the lowly life, i.e., the life of this world) rather than with the Hereafter? Yet in no way is the enjoyment of the present life, in the Hereafter anything except a little thing."

I was hoping this would help with depression since that makes it hard to know what you want since nothing feels good however this video is talking about more long term life goals. The video assumes that the viewer has had plenty of fulfilling moments but I doubt that's true for everyone. Ignoring small fleeting fulfillment like completing a video game I can't name any fulfilling moments in my life.

Also (in agreement with Lovable by Kelly Flanagan) I think it would be more appropriate to look for examples of "things you're willing to suffer for" (the Greek/Latin word for "passion" but not the English word for it) than "things that reached maximum satisfaction" (English word for "fulfillment") since some fulfillment is small fleeting irrelevant ("thin desire"). Whereas sacrificial desire (Greek passion) is something more deeply rooted ("thick desire").

Lucifer can help

What i found fullfilling? I thought that some people like been hit, thats pain, weird and that some like only feel good and everything makes them feel fear or uncomfortable they avoid it. Desires to me is more easy to define as a level of relationship of the man with things and states of mind, in the basic level there is needs, like eating and sleeping but the mind failed and you might get eating issues and sleeping problems, then you have wants i want this if it is material might involves some higher level of compexity and the state of mind is easy with it or obssesed with it. The rare here is that eating might be a want. So you might become obsesed with eating. Food is a need and a want and desires, should be higher than want. Desires might be like the non material, i get confused. Again needs, wants and desires are defined instead by the object. I would.try later to clarify to me this.

I haven't really found anything productive in this video. Nothing is currently fulfilling in my life right now. You want me to listen to myself? What does that even mean?

I see a lot of this advice 'think back to a time when you felt happy/fulfilled/at peace' or whatever. I can't recall an authentic time like that. Any brief happy times have been on the attainment of what I knew, even at the time, to be extremely 'thin' desires. There's nothing thick to latch onto!

I've always wanted to be loved like he loves me. And I've always wanted to love him how he wants to be loved. I've wanted to experience a deep emotional connection within a traditional relationship as long as I can remember.

Is my desire to have a beautiful girlfriend thick or thin?

Lack.

Wow. Im so glad there are people who actually listen.

This man just doin Lucifer's job for all the masses

For the algo!?

They're both desires nonetheless, you don't need to know which will turn out great, just what is good and meaningful. Because what else are you gonna aim for? Humans are fickle by nature, when we get what we want, we then want something else. Just pursue what you think is good and meaningful then see where it gets you. You "might" find happiness but I am sure you won't be miserable.

I want to reset my life. LOL

Big think...? More like very ordinary no new information or conclusion small think