The Difference Between Wanting and Uniting

“Instead of living a life where you’re avoiding what you don’t want, what is it that you want?” A great question. Fruitful. So, why have I been having a sense of unease around it?

I looked up the etymology of the word want today and found it is rooted in an original meaning that I wouldn’t surround my life around:

c. 1200, “to be lacking,” from Old Norse vanta “to lack, want,” earlier *wanaton, from Proto-Germanic *wanen, from PIE *weno-, suffixed form of root *eue- “to leave, abandon, give out.” The meaning “desire, wish for, feel the need of” is recorded by 1706.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/want#etymonline_v_4822

I think and talk a lot about getting what I want in life. It’s in our every day language as a society. The bad news is that I do sense many of us inadvertently come from the energy of lacking when we talk about what we want because it has been built into the nature of our word and our culture. It’s almost funny to me that a person, i.e. me, can still be in the energy of “don’t want” even when I switch it to “do want.” It’s because of the way I’m defining the word!

I’d love if we just had a different word for want that comes from a deep inner knowing the object of desire is actually waiting to be expressed from within me. But, let’s admit it would sound weird to almost all that if instead of saying “I want to teach a great class today”, I said “I manifest a great class from the inside out!” I can and do say the second one, though not to my barista when inviting them to try yoga for the first time. We’ve got to get that there’s a strategy in this kind of expression!

At this point, I will remind myself and invite the reader of these words (you) to reroot the word want to mean this: a call to unite with and integrate. Now, want for me will always mean unite.

There are many so-called wants that come from my animalistic, survival self like food, pleasure, power, authority, safety, protection in forms for my physical body and my mental body. These come from a feeling that I don’t have enough yet, so I must get more to feel better. A temporary, illusionary want.

Then, there are Wants of the Highest. Desires from a the real me, beyond the reactionary world, like peace for all, service, compassion, connection, and love. These come from a call, if you will, from within. One that asks if I will magnetize these things because they already comprise me, and an act of union will dissolve the illusion of lacking. My answer must be: Yes. I will.

This morning, I asked myself what are all the things I want because I was feeling a little aimless and a little like I’m just going through the motions. That’s what had me look up the root of the word want. I’m awakened to a Higher Want now, potential acts of union that I could remember and act from; and so now before my day begins, I now feel confident and I feel the tingling energy of possibility, jovially calling the real me to come out, play, and show the world what I Want.