What we all want most

It is an axiom of ancient eastern spirituality that you can have whatever you want. The trick is to know what exactly you want.

Underneath it all, what do you really want? What is your core need, the very root need from which all your other needs grow?

What do you want that, if you get it, will leave you wanting nothing at all?

My vote is that above all what we all desire is to be loved. To be affirmed. To be validated, appreciated, accepted, understood as being—without having to do anything to prove that we are—awesome.

We are all absolutely bonkers to be loved. Really loved. Not loved because we’re good. Not loved because we’re worth it. Not loved because the other person is in a good mood. Not loved because of how sexy or smart or talented or accomplished or good to others we are.

Nah. That’s too easy. What we want is impossible. What we want is to be loved for the entirety of who we are—warts, as they say, and all.

We want the worst of who we are to be loved just as much (or better!) than the best of who we are. And we want that love to be absolute and permanent.

That’s the deal. That’s what we want. That’s what we’ve always wanted. That’s what we were born wanting, live wanting, and will die wanting.

The Very Big Problem, of course, is that an absolute and permanent love must come from an absolute and permanent source.

Gee, if only there was a God who had done everything humanely and divinely possible to prove to each and every one of us that we are, absolutely and forever, loved.

Wouldn’t that be great?

But that’s just not the way the world works, is it?

(Photo credit: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)