I want

[quarrel]

I want basic job competence. I want to know what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and why I’m doing it this way. I want to be able to explain all of these to anyone. I also want to be able to explain all the alternate things I could have done and the ways I could have done them, as well as all their drawbacks compared to the task and method I actually chose.

I want to be more critical, to have higher standards. I want to stop embarrassing myself by being too easy to impress by amateurish creative works. I want to see the flaws in the things I get paid to improve.

I want to stop losing board games I’ve played half a dozen times to players who’ve never seen them before because they are better at thinking ahead, better at considering the entire playfield, better at adapting to changing situations, better at deducing and memorizing hidden knowledge, better at recognizing parallels to other games, and better at extrapolating effective strategies purely from reading the rules rather than needing to assemble a catalogue of good and bad plays over time via observation and trial-and-error like I do.

I want to feel sufficiently competent, confident, and responsible that I could successfully attempt a challenging adult task like raising a child, or buying a house, or getting a Ph.D., or open-carrying a gun, or enacting a policy that negatively impacts the livelihood of tens of thousands of people.

I want to be assertive without being a dick.

I want to be assertive without feeling like a dick.

I want to be more competitive without feeling unethical. I want to feel like accelerating up to speed and merging into the flow of traffic is different from intentionally cutting someone off. I want to shed the burden of knowing that if there are twenty people behind me in line and I order something that takes thirty seconds to make, I’ve caused ten minutes of delay. I want to feel there is more difference than just a varying degree of dominance between trying to win a hand of rummy against my grandmother and forcing someone’s head under a sinkfull of water until he stops kicking.

I want a hobby.

I want to know how good I am. Accurate self-assessment is a necessary element of mastery. (It doesn’t matter how good you are; if you don’t honestly know that you’re good, you aren’t.)

I want the rapid and extensive recall, the full and fast access to vast stores of accumulated experience and knowledge, that befit a dedicated professional who’s been studying one field for years. I want to feel like I’m actually honing my skills, like I’m gaining knowledge faster than I’m losing it. The mark of a competent person is not how often he makes mistakes, but rather how often he repeats them. I repeat them a lot.

I want to be better at my paid job than the half-dozen friends of mine who do higher quality work, and in less time, as unpaid hobbies. Failing that, I want to feel comfortable about taking money for it anyway.

I want to stop feeling that if something is hard, you’re bad at it.

I want to stay focused.

I want to be able to read two books a month.

I want to know if I am a citizen, and if so, what kind. I want to know if I should be a citizen, and if not, what to change.

I want to get over myself.

I want to know just how serious my issues can possibly be when they’re purely mental and will vanish in a puff of vapor the instant I voluntarily choose not to have them anymore, while people around me are burying tumor-ridden parents, getting their jobless asses thrown on the street, and coming back from Iraq with no legs.

I want to want these things inherently, naturally, and without conscious effort. I do not want to want them because I’m after their rewards or because I feel obliged by friends, society, or conscience.

I want to know if I can still achieve any of these things or if the very fact that I don’t already have them means I never will.

I want to want.

I want to be okay with getting.