Editorial January 8, 2001 Issue

How to know what you really want

Margaret Rogers

There was a time when I was weighed down by a project I'd volunteered for. It went on much longer than expected, and people became dependent on me. I wanted to be rid of the obligation, but I couldn't back out with a good conscience. Almost every day was a struggle between what I thought I wanted and what I felt obligated to do. I say "thought" I wanted, because something that became clear to me during that time was that strong feelings aren't always a trustworthy gauge of real desires.

To know what you really want, you have to know who you really are. There's no question that you are an individual and that there's no one just like you. We each have a right to be happy and free. It's equally true that none of us exists as an independent selfish being, to do what pleases us at the moment. The only way to know ourselves accurately is to understand the nature of what forms us in the first place—the one self-existent Being, God. We are the outcome of God's being. Each of us is the individual, spiritual image of God, as the Bible says. One of the most liberating truths to discover is that we can know everything about ourselves—even what our most genuine and valid desires are—by looking deep into the nature of God. Since God is satisfied, then that must be the nature of His image, too.

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