What if the thing you’ve been chasing for years…
isn’t actually what you need?
I know. That’s a slightly uncomfortable question.
Because we spend so much of our lives chasing things.
The better job.
The bigger house.
The relationship.
More money.
More success.
More recognition.
And we keep telling ourselves,
“Once I have that… then I’ll be happy.”
And sometimes we get it.
And we are happy.
For about five minutes.
And then our brain goes,
“Lovely. What’s next?”
And off we go again.
I was thinking about this recently and remembered a beautiful idea from the Upanishads.
It says, in essence, that we don’t always desire things for the things themselves.
We desire what we believe those things will make us feel.
We think we want the beautiful house.
But perhaps what we really want is to feel safe.
We think we want the perfect relationship.
But perhaps what we really want is to feel loved.
We think we want success.
But perhaps underneath all of it is a very simple wish:
To feel that we are enough.
And I think that is such an important distinction.
Because maybe the question isn’t,
“How do I get what I want?”
Maybe it is,
“What am I hoping this will give me?”
I remember someone telling me about how desperately they wanted to move into a bigger house.
They had imagined it for years.
More space.
A beautiful kitchen.
A garden.
And when they finally got it, they were thrilled.
They stood in the middle of this beautiful new living room and thought,
“I’ve made it.”
And then, a few months later, they laughed and said,
“You know what I really miss?
The little balcony in my old house.”
The very balcony they had complained about for years.
Because that was where they used to sit every morning with their coffee.
And suddenly they realised…
they hadn’t really been chasing a bigger house.
They had been chasing a feeling.
And that feeling had been available to them all along.
I think we do this more often than we realise.
We chase the next version of our life while quietly missing the life we are actually living.
We say,
“I’ll rest when this is over.”
“I’ll travel when I have more money.”
“I’ll be happy when things settle down.”
But things don’t really settle down, do they?
There is always another email.
Another bill.
Another goal.
Another five kilos to lose.
Another thing to fix.
Another version of ourselves we think we need to become.
And somewhere in all that chasing, we forget to ask:
Do I actually want this?
Or have I just learned to want it?
Because there is a difference.
And I’m not saying we should stop wanting things.
Please. I’m not suggesting we all give up our dreams, sell our houses and go sit under a tree.
Although, honestly, some days the tree sounds quite appealing.
Wanting more isn’t wrong.
Ambition isn’t wrong.
Dreaming isn’t wrong.
But believing that the next thing will finally make us whole…
that’s where we can get stuck.
Because if we don’t know what we’re really looking for, we can spend years collecting things that were never the answer.
And maybe that’s why sometimes people get everything they once prayed for…
and still feel restless.
While someone else can be sitting with a cup of chai, watching the rain, and think,
“Life is actually quite lovely.”
Maybe happiness isn’t always waiting at the finish line.
Maybe sometimes…
it’s sitting beside us while we’re busy running.
So perhaps, every once in a while, we need to pause and ask ourselves:
What am I really chasing?
Is it money?
Or is it freedom?
Is it success?
Or is it validation?
Is it the perfect relationship?
Or is it the feeling of being loved?
And then perhaps ask one more question:
Is there a way I can experience a little of that feeling today, without waiting for my entire life to change?
Because maybe you don’t need the bigger house to feel at home.
Maybe you don’t need everyone to approve of you to know your worth.
Maybe you don’t need the perfect relationship to feel loved.
And maybe you don’t need to become some completely polished, sorted-out version of yourself to finally be happy.
Maybe you just need to stop for a moment.
Take a breath.
Look around.
And notice.
Because there is a very real possibility that some of what you’re desperately chasing…
is already sitting quietly in your life.
And maybe that is the little reminder we all need:
You are allowed to want more.
Just don’t make more the price of being happy.
Because one day, you may finally get everything you thought you wanted.
And I hope, before that day comes…
you learn to recognise what you actually needed.
Because perhaps the saddest thing isn’t that we don’t get what we want.
Perhaps it’s spending years running towards something…
only to realise that happiness wasn’t waiting for us at the end. It was walking beside us the whole time.
We were just too busy chasing to notice.
