What Do We Really Want?

It’s Not About Time

In terms of nurturing our interior life we make a lot of excuses: I really want to but I’m very busy right now; I’ll get to it, but at the moment I just don’t have enough time. But such disclaimers don’t ring well - even to ourselves. We usually find time to do what we really want.

The problem isn’t our time. It’s our will. We lack the will to go deeper. Thomas Kelly lays it out clearly when he writes,

Our real problem, in failing to centre down, is not a lack of time; it is, I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in him, lack of deep, deep-drawing love directed toward Him at every hour of the day and night. (Thomas Kelly)

I’m in the middle of watching the gritty drama series Ozark in which the drug -lord Navarro keeps saying to the protagonist, “What do you want, Marty? What do you really want?” For each of us, in our own setting, this is a salient question to ponder. What do I want, really want? For my deepest most authentic self?

When put this way, it isn’t so much about the amount of time, but what we do with each moment.