Wish You Could (Maybe You Can!)
There were so many great parts of this Substack, so read the whole thing, but the part that stuck with me came about halfway down the page.
She tackles the sentiment: “I wish I could do that.”
I hear myself constantly say it, and I hear others too—particularly when it comes to talking about languages … As though…learning Spanish were akin to wishing you had been born an armadillo. It’s actually something you can do!
But then she reveals the truth: “Often, what I realize, is that I don’t actually wish I could do that thing. Not really. The truth is: I don’t want to! And that’s fine!!!!”
I think we’re conditioned to think that we need to put into action the things we want (that can-do, make-it-happen attitude), but she encourages people to pause and think: (1) can you do something about it beyond wishing and (2) do you actually want to or are you okay not taking action? Or can you be involved in a passive way (e.g., watching movies in Spanish with subtitles to hear the language without committing the hours to learning it)?
I’m trying to catch myself when I use the term “wish” and say what I really mean.
3 comments
For me it’s more of a I wish I could without any effort. Like, I might be able to learn to draw. But it would take a long time and be really frustrating. So I’m in awe that DC2 can draw so well and so easily. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I don’t want to make the trade-offs. Which I think is different.
I’ve been trained to think more continuously and less in terms of black and white. Just because you don’t want to make the trade-offs doesn’t mean you don’t want something. If it was free, you might still want it. There’s some point where the trade-offs are worth it, but you’re not at that point right now.
Like, there are $400 fountain pens I want, but I’m not going to pay $400 for any pen. And there’s $25 pens that are just on my edge of willingness-to-buy, and $3 pens I’ve already bought and love and use. It’s the same with time spent. Our revealed preferences only show us where the utility curve hits the budget constraint, they don’t show the entire shape of the utility curve.
After we spent three months in Italy about 12 years ago, I had a former mentor say, “I wish I could do that.” Then made excuses that she couldn’t because she would miss the grandchildren. It was perfectly within her means – she just didn’t want to go away for that time.
So much is about choices, sacrifices we choose to make, or decide against. I really like this reminder. We all have different reservoirs of resource – money, time, energy, ability, etc. I have friends/family who put value on things that don’t have value to me, or that I choose to forego, so I can do something else that is more important.
There are some things I wish I could do that I absolutely could never do. And there are some things I wish I had the will to work on, but I know I don’t.