You don’t need a reason to want more.
It sounds obvious, but most people believe the opposite. They think wanting more requires justification.
A failure. A crisis. A visible problem.
Without that, wanting more feels indulgent, unreasonable, even ungrateful. As if desire is inherently wrong. As if contentment is the default and ambition needs permission. So instead of asking what you want, you start by asking whether you’re allowed to want it at all.
Instead of simply accepting what you want, you deliberate endlessly. You try to decide whether you’re worthy of it, whether it fits your identity, and what other people might say about it.
You evaluate before you even allow yourself to feel. You filter before you admit interest. You hesitate before you move. And the longer you do this, the more natural it seems.
You’re so used to running these mental checks that they feel automatic. You barely notice them anymore.
But they’re there.
And slowly, almost invisibly, what you want becomes secondary to how it makes you look. Not because you’re shallow, but because social perception has become intertwined with safety, belonging, and self-worth.
Because often what you actually want most is control over how others perceive you.
You may genuinely want a certain thing. That part is real. But if there’s an alternative that signals competence, taste, success, or stability, it becomes very hard to ignore. It becomes a conflict.
And more often than not, appearance wins that conflict.
Most people are neck-deep in a status game they never consciously chose to join. What they do, say, pursue, postpone, or abandon is quietly shaped by status considerations. Entire career paths, hobbies, relationships, even opinions are influenced by how they position you socially.
Of course, few people would admit this. Ironically, openly chasing status is considered low status.
So everyone pretends. They wrap ambition in virtue. They frame comparison as practicality. They call signaling “being realistic.” And slowly it becomes difficult to have a genuinely honest conversation, because honesty threatens the appearance that people have so carefully crafted.
Even worse, you don’t just mislead others. You mislead yourself. If you simply admitted your real intentions instead of dressing them up as something nobler, a lot of inner friction would disappear. Much of the tension you feel comes from managing appearances rather than pursuing desires.
It doesn’t need to be this hard.
Everything you do, and everything you ever will do, serves you in some way. That’s not a moral failure. It’s human nature. Self-interest isn’t the enemy. Denial of it often is. Trying to appear completely selfless usually just creates another layer of performance.
But acknowledging this doesn’t mean you become cynical or cold. It means you become clearer. You stop pretending your motives are purer than they are, and that honesty paradoxically makes your actions more grounded, not less.
You are allowed to care about yourself. You can want more without a dramatic excuse. You can move toward something simply because it feels true to you.
It doesn’t need to be be justified.
And that’s often the real shift. Not permission from others. Not a crisis. Not a collapse. Just the quiet decision to stop explaining your own desire and start taking it seriously.
Once you realize you’re allowed to want something without justification, without explanation, without a dramatic backstory, something loosens. Desire stops feeling like a problem to solve and starts feeling like direction. And when you stop negotiating with your own wants, you don’t become reckless.
You simply free yourself to pursue what you already know you want.
Sincerely,
Milo Morrison