Click HERE to watch the video.

Getting What You Want Most

When I tuned into NPR, the story was about an oral surgeon transitioning into a new vocation. As the reporter told it, this doctor had achieved an enviable level of fame and success. He had invented several innovative techniques and had firmly established himself as one of the leading practitioners of his craft. But at some point, the surgeon decided that he no longer wanted to practice medicine. Instead he was ready to live his dream and start doing what he always wanted to do.

(While I was totally enthralled by the story, I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember what woo-woo activity the oral surgeon wanted to dedicate his life to pursuing. For the sake of argument, let’s say he wanted to make organic goat cheese.)

The young reporter couldn’t understand why the doctor was making the change. After all, the surgeon had risen to the top of his field, made tons of dough, helped lots of people, and did most of the things that most people would agree signified success.

The first time the reporter asked, the surgeon replied that even though he had spent the last 40 years building his oral surgery practice, what he’d always wanted to do was make goat cheese.

“Then why did you become an oral surgeon?” the reporter asked.

“Because that’s the next thing you do when you get out of dental school.” the surgeon answered. “Also,” he added, “med school was very expensive. I had tuition loans to pay, I had a family to raise, and I had other responsibilities. I had to do what I had to do.”

“Then why are you walking away now?”

“Because I’ve been doing this long enough. At 59 years old, it’s time for me to do what I’ve always wanted to do. And besides, if an 18-year-old boy told me what to do with the rest of my life today, I wouldn’t listen to that advice. So why should I continue to listen to that advice just because I got it so long ago?”

The reporter was too young to understand to whom the surgeon referred and asked, “But what 18-year-old boy gave you that advice?”

Of course, you and I know precisely whom the oral surgeon was talking about. It was his own decision to go to dental school back when he was in college. And while it might have been good advice back then, it wasn’t good advice anymore. Because now the right thing to do was for the doctor to stop following the recommendations of his teenage self and start listening to his 59-year-old self.

Getting What You Want Most

Why don’t the rest of us follow the lead of our oral surgeon?

Because we give up what we want to pursue what we wanted.

And more often, what we want is not what we actually want now but what we believe someone else wanted for us.

It might have been our parents.

It might have been a school counselor.

It might have been clergy.

It might have been a spouse, a mentor, or even a clever advertising person.

And it very well might have been our own younger self.

But today is the day that we decide what we want. Today is the day to begin to live your own life.

Getting What You Want Most

As the Bible says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

Written in today’s plain English, I take this to mean that as we grow from childhood to adulthood, we naturally change how we communicate, think, and understand the world. Our ‘childish’ ways are not negative in this context; they simply reflect a particular stage of our development.

As we mature, we must leave behind these early ways of thinking and behaving to embrace a more adult, mature, and ultimately more rewarding perspective.

Applying this to our current longings and desires encourages us to evaluate whether the things we yearn for reflect a mature outlook on life. It suggests that as we grow and learn, our desires should evolve to align with the values and wisdom we’ve acquired.

Such as making organic goat cheese like our oral surgeon. Or whatever it is you want.