I Don’t Know What I Want Anymore, and That’s My Fault

I don’t know what I want anymore, and I keep trying to pretend that’s a neutral fact. Like it just happened. Like clarity slipped away on its own and I’m a passive observer, mildly inconvenienced but not responsible.

That’s not true.

I helped this happen.

There was a time when my wants were clearer—not louder, not more ambitious, just more accessible. I could name them without flinching. I didn’t always get what I wanted, but I knew what direction I was facing. That counted for something.

Now, when people ask what I want, my mind goes blank in a very specific way. Not empty—crowded. Too many considerations rush in at once. Practicality. Optics. Risk. Timing. What makes sense. What sounds reasonable. What version of me would be easiest to explain.

By the time all that noise settles, the original desire is gone.

I tell myself this is maturity. That not knowing what you want is part of growth. That desires evolve, priorities shift, uncertainty is healthy. All of that can be true. But it’s also a convenient cover for what I’ve been doing: postponing desire until it no longer feels like mine.

Wanting things openly started to feel dangerous. Wants create expectations. Expectations create exposure. If you admit what you want and don’t get it, the disappointment has nowhere to hide. So I learned to blur my desires until they were abstract enough to be safe.

I stopped saying “I want” and started saying “I’m open to.”

I stopped choosing and started waiting.

I stopped listening for clarity and started negotiating it down.

That kind of self-editing adds up.

Over time, I got very good at living in reaction mode—responding to what showed up instead of reaching for what didn’t. It felt flexible. Adaptable. But flexibility without direction eventually becomes drift, and drift doesn’t announce itself as a problem until you’re far from where you meant to be.

The uncomfortable truth is that I didn’t lose my sense of wanting. I abandoned it.

I ignored small signals because they were inconvenient. I talked myself out of preferences because they felt indulgent. I chose what was acceptable over what was honest often enough that my internal compass recalibrated around avoidance.

Now, when I try to check in with myself, there’s static. Not because there’s nothing there—but because I trained myself not to hear it.

There’s a strange grief in realizing you don’t know what you want because you kept telling yourself it didn’t matter. That wanting less would make you easier to satisfy. That being low-maintenance was a virtue. That wanting too much was embarrassing.

I became cautious with desire the way some people become cautious with money—afraid to spend, afraid to commit, afraid to miscalculate. The result isn’t security. It’s stagnation.

What makes this harder to admit is that no one did this to me. There’s no single moment, no external force to blame. Just a pattern of small decisions that prioritized safety over clarity. Over and over again.

That’s the part I’m still sitting with: this confusion isn’t bad luck. It’s a consequence.

I don’t think the solution is some dramatic rediscovery of purpose. That feels fake. What I think is more likely—and more uncomfortable—is that I have to relearn how to want things without immediately managing the fallout in my head.

To let a desire exist before I interrogate it.

To notice what pulls me without demanding justification.

To accept that wanting something doesn’t obligate me to be certain, successful, or even right.

Right now, I don’t know what I want. Saying that out loud feels exposing, but also accurate. And accuracy matters more than optimism at this stage.

What I do know is this: pretending I don’t want anything has cost me more than admitting I might want the wrong thing ever could.

If this confusion is my fault, then that’s strangely hopeful. Because responsibility cuts both ways. If I learned how to ignore myself, I can learn how to listen again.

Slowly.

Clumsily.

Without guarantees.

I don’t need all the answers yet. I just need to stop silencing the questions the moment they appear.

That’s on me.

And for the first time in a while, I’m not trying to explain that away.