On wanting what you have

"Want what you have" sounds like acquiescence. It isn't. It's the much harder move of refusing to let wanting become the point.

The machinery of modern attention is built to manufacture a specific flavor of wanting — a small, renewable discontent. Noticing that the wanting was manufactured is not the same as dissolving it, but it's the first step.

The test is whether a thing still pleases you when no one is looking. A surprising amount of what we chase doesn't survive that test.