Do we really know what we want in life?

Someone wrote to me recently and in his message he asked whether we know what we want in life. He observed that our perceptions change as we grow and suggested that this may result in confusion.

I believe that deep down inside we know what we really really want in life. However, our conditioning has confused us. The examples we are exposed to everyday over the years. Our environment. The values pushed onto and into us. To the point of confusion. To the point we feel torn. Is what we want what we REALLY want or is it something we have been brainwashed into thinking we want? Internal conflicts like this happen all the time and cause unhappiness because we cannot separate what is real from what is not. Some of us are lucky and realise what is happening and this gives us the opporunity to pause and meditate and reflect on our life and what is really important. Some of us just go on plodding on through life. So many. Wondering to themselves, "I have a job, a wife, kids, a house, a car etc... Why then am I unhappy? Why does it feel like something is missing?"

Yes, our perception is always changing. This is because our perception is influenced by our perspective and our perspective is influenced by knowledge and our knowledge is ever increasing everyday with each new experience we experience. The danger of this increasing body of knowledge and how it affects us is that we end up believing we already know the answers before the questions are even asked. And so nothing is new, there are no surprises or learning and we end up being wrong as often as we are right. To be able to wake up each day and experience the world through the eyes, heart andmind of a child is a gift few of us have.