Is Not Getting What I Want a Wonderful Gift?
Not getting what I want can really, really suck.
For instance, as an Australia-obsessed teenager applying for a year-long exchange program to another country, I didn’t get my first choice.
Instead of finding myself Down Under, I ended up travelling straight across the second largest country in the world. As an exchange student in Canada, I got to experience beautiful nature and kindhearted people. I created memories for a lifetime and amazing friendships, some of which have lasted to this day.
Today, I am beyond grateful that I didn’t what I wanted.
Of course, gratitude wasn’t my first reaction back then. My first reaction? Huge disappointment — I was a teenager, after all.
I also felt very justified in my disappointment. After all, what I had wanted was to spend a year in Australia — not Canada! I wanted kangaroos, not grizzly bears. The former look a lot cuter, don’t they?
To add insult to injury, I found out that I wouldn’t even stay in a big, interesting city like Toronto, but in a really small town in a small province. As a teenager.
After the first disappointment wore off, I decided to make the best of it.
Something that started as a disappointment became the best year of my life until that point.
Many years later I realized that certain conditions had made this year so special: I was so lucky to stay with people who had hosted dozens of exchange students before. Their expert advice and the community-feel of a small town helped make this year so exceptional for me.
I think that I couldn’t have encountered those exact conditions anywhere else.
True, I did not get to see kangaroos, and instead spent quite a lot of time in ice rinks — but getting my second choice turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I also got to see big, interesting cities like Toronto and NYC along the way.
What I learned from this experience is that I can focus too much on getting what I want, instead of finding the blessing in not getting it.
When approached consciously, not getting what I want can be an art form and an opportunity for growth.
In fact, not getting what one wants can turn into art itself:
Legend has it that Rolling Stones’ singer Mick Jagger once was in a local drugstore in Excelsior, Minnesota, to pick up a prescription. A guy known as Mr. Jimmy was in front of him and ordered a Cherry Coke but the store only had regular one left. Turning to Jagger, Mr. Jimmy uttered “You can’t always get what you want.”
The rest is Rock’n’Roll history.
Listening to the song that came out of this line is a great pick-me-up when I don’t get what I want. If the legend is true, I am grateful that Mr. Jimmy did not get his Cherry Coke that day (sorry, Mr. Jimmy!)— and that he was evolved enough to comment about this situation with such a memorable line.
I think the song’s lyrics nail it. Yes, I may not always get what I want. But when I look back at my life, I can see that I often got exactly why I needed for my growth.
The reason for this? As Kris Gage pointed out, people don’t actually know what they want and their brains can make meaning out of everything.
Depending on my perspective, the same thing can be a disappointment or a blessing. Why not choose the latter?
When I looked at my exchange year through this perspective, it gave me the following insights:
There is a difference between what I want (or think I want) and what I really want (or need).
In my case, what I really wanted and needed from my exchange year were friendships, amazing experiences, a sense of freedom, support and community.
Because I was unaware of these deeper desires, I instead focused on something secondary — the country I wanted to visit.
Not getting what I consciously wanted (but what really wasn’t so important) freed me to get what I unconsciously wanted (and what actually was important to me).
I later realized that this can be true in many different areas of life, including relationships and work.
I know people who would not be together with their soul mate if they had gotten the “ego mate” they wanted. And I’m aware of others who might not have discovered a sense of purpose in their work if their career had gone the way they had wanted it to go.
Not getting what I want can make my life better, because it opens up space for what I really want (or need).
While not getting what I want might be a blessing in disguise, it can often take a long time to find the hidden gift in it.
It often helps me to simply be open to the possibility that a disappointment can have undiscovered benefits. Often, this attitude alone allows me to see the positive sides and make the best of the situation.
And if there really is nothing positive about it? Well, then it might be helpful to remember Marianne Williamson’s words:
“As someone who has faced as much disappointment as most people, I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way.”
And the realization that I will be fine either way is, in itself, a huge gift.
Invitation
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A version of this article was originally published at Elephant Journal here.
