Learning to Want

 

Suffering now doesn’t guarantee a secure future. I spent years saving for later, only to learn that everything we deserve is in the moment.

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

I was mainly raised and cared for by my grandmother. She was a very thrifty and stingy person, so I was taught not to indulge or pamper myself too much. I had to beg or convince her if I wanted to buy something back then. She would say things like, I shouldn’t want the things I asked for. Slowly, I grew up unable to enjoy life in the moment. Somehow, somewhere deep inside me, I felt that I didn’t deserve to enjoy what I wanted back then. The food I love to eat, the clothes I love to wear, the places I love to visit, and the luxury items I want — I would still do them, but with a very different mentality, or sometimes because the people around me convinced me to enjoy certain things at the time.

Most of the time I would measure if it’s worth it or maybe leave it for later…when I have more money and so on. I thought I shouldn’t spend what I have. Sometimes I stocked up on things I use regularly, like kitchen condiments and skincare. But with the habit of saving them for later, I ended up keeping them for too long until I had to throw them away because they were expired — the bottles of sauces, the unopened boxes of products.

I hadn’t yet realised what I did, even after I felt the pain of throwing things away. I thought by doing so I was preparing myself for rainy days, for ‘maybe I might need them later’ practice. But what I didn’t realise was I delayed my entitlement to enjoy what I deserved there and then and yes, things can get better but we tend to forget that they can also get worse as we go on in life. For decades, I couldn’t enjoy, and I didn’t know how to enjoy them fully and comfortably. I had been doing this for as long as I could remember.

To be honest, when I denied my desires or pushed them away to be fulfilled later, back then, I could actually afford them with ease. Even after all these saving mindsets, life didn’t reward me with what I thought it would.

After years had passed, life finally threw me into circumstances I couldn’t avoid. I began to realise the chances I had back then to enjoy the things that I loved and didn’t. When the moments I can’t enjoy anything according to my desires anymore made me treasure the moments when I actually can, even if it’s briefly. Going through these experiences has made me start doing what I truly want and am able to do right here and now, instead of saving them for the future.

I realised that everything I can enjoy is actually now, in this very moment. There is really nothing to be kept for tomorrow. Nobody knows what’s going to happen to us in the next moment. Suffering now does not guarantee a secure future. Pain doesn’t mean gain.

And because nothing is ever guaranteed, being present in the moment is more valuable and more real.

Originally published on Medium in the publication ILLUMINATION