by Brian Edwards

Created on: January 31, 2007   Last Updated: March 03, 2007

I could spend all night giving you reasons why you can't have what you want. But, to be honest, why would anyone want to spew out philosophical B.S. to make someone feel better when things don't go their way? Everyone seems to use the same lines over and over; "what you want might not be what you need", "you can't always get what you want", etc.

The truth of the matter is that we do, in fact, get what we want. Just not all the time. The only time we seem to notice that we're not getting our way is... well, when we're not getting our way. Every time a person doesn't get their way, it's always "Things never going my way." The reason a person comes to that conclusion is because their comparing the one experience to every other time things have not gone their way. No one ever takes into account the times that things do go their way. When you look at it that way, it balances out a little.

For instance; last week I wanted to go out for sushi. My roommates wanted to go out for pizza. I was out-voted. However, there have been times when neither of them wanted to do something I wanted to do (see a particular movie, for example), but they gave in anyway and I got what I wanted.

Sure, sometimes it's not as easy as that. Sometimes you want to get that big job, that big date, etc. People can't figure out why things are going their way and they'll give up or grow that much more bitter. Usually when we want something big (like that big job, or that big date, or anything else), it takes some work. We're a society that's been built on instant gratification and we can't seem to break past that stigma.

The real reason, the thing behind it all, is that we can't get what we want because we stand in our own way and prevent ourselves from getting whatever it is that we want. Whether we stop ourselves by making a false claim ("I never get what I want!") and putting up a mental block that we can't get what we want. Or maybe it's that we give up so quickly after we hit a dead end. In the end, it's still our own selves in the way.

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