It seems so simple. Want a thing, work for the thing, and eventually get the thing, then move on to the next thing. I mean it can be as simple as “Wow, Cheetos!” and you grab them in the store, pay for them, and you are happily munching an amazingly tasty not-really food product. However, humans are tapestries built of millions of desires, needs, responsibilities, relationships and we live in a world of billions of people interacting not only with each other but with the infinitude of other beings and objects in the universe. So wanting something and making it happen is often not such a straight line. Even if we really knew what it was we were wanting. Which many times we either don’t or we recognize it only partially.
For example: You want to work with wolves. You love wolves, think they are amazingly spiritual animals, and you want to be around them all day long as a career. So you start looking at ways to do this, find a company that works with wolves for the movie and entertainment industry, they hire you to work with them, you start the work and things go awry almost immediately. There are rules to how you interact with the wolves. They have to be caged, chained, fed at certain times for certain effect, you argue with the trainer because you don’t feel they are being respected, you find out that many are not really wolves but wolf hybrids, there is one wolf that doesn’t deal well with you, you get bit several times, although not injured because you were required to wear protective gear, and finally you quit because this was not at all what you wanted. You conclude that wolves are not spiritual animals, Hollywood sucks, and you go back to working at the local grocery store.
So was the issue really with Hollywood and the animals and the trainers or was the issue that you didn’t know what you actually wanted? Did you really want to work with wolves? Or were you looking for an opportunity to commune with wolves in a way that you didn’t need to go out into the Wilderness and camp in the snow for weeks on end? Did you want a spiritual experience rather than a job working with animals? Were you needing to feel something transcendent rather than mundane? Were you needing to feel special because you were working with beings who are innately spiritual or to become more spiritual yourself through association?
It could be any and/or all of that. Knowing what you really want can help you avoid such experiences in the future or help you avoid them before they happen. Learning that the issue arose not only because the situation didn’t fit the desire but because the desire didn’t match the situation, can really help you in being able to navigate to a good resolution. Rather than working with wolves, perhaps you could goto a Zoo, a research center or a rescue group dedicated to education and personal experience and get further information and direct contact with wild wolves. Or perhaps its enough to look at your favorite picture of wolves and wish them all healthy and well now and in the future. It all depends on what you really want.
