I was not taught to indulge my wants. Contrary, I was taught to control them. There was something wrong with the very notion of having a desire. There was something frivolous and egoistic in it. The real virtue was in giving up and giving away or in working very, very hard hoping for a reward. There was always a condition for getting what I would love to have. I seldom got it and I started associated it with disappointment. Consequently I was trained to believe that wanting is bad. It was better not to want, not to desire; it was less painful and more acceptable. “Resist” became my mantra.
This programming was so successful that when somebody asked me what I wanted I usually was stupefied if not provoked by this question. I discovered to have great difficulties in answering it. I was trained to suppress and deny my desires and now they want me to acknowledge them. I have been hiding and obscuring what I really wanted so efficiently and successfully that I myself forgot it. It was much easier to recognize all the right things I should be, should have and should do fulfilling wishes of society than my own.
To find out who I really am is undeniably connected to knowing what I want. So there is work to be done in digging out all the forgotten stuff.
It is not about satisfying crazy whims immediately. It is about recognizing my preferences, likings and wishes. Because what I truly want comes from my real nature, from the deepest part of me and not from the expectations put on me by others. These desires deserve attention.
I can give them my attention in the safe space of meditation, I can be mindful of them without acting. If I allow them to exist in my inner space they have chance to exist in the physical world. I take that risk. I feel their energy. I allow them to live. I meditate on them.