The Paradox of Knowing What You Want
The cost of self-knowledge: fewer opportunities, less flexibility, more rigidity
A recruiter contacted me last week about a role at a tech startup. I opened the email, scanned the first paragraph, and saw two words: “fast-paced environment.”
I deleted it immediately.
At 25, I would have responded within an hour, excited about the opportunity.
At 38, I knew within 30 seconds it wasn’t for me. Wrong culture. Wrong pace. Wrong life.
I know exactly what I want now.
And that’s becoming a problem.
Open to Everything, Wanted Nothing
In my 20s, I didn’t know what I wanted.
At that age, that’s usually normal.
There were only a few people around who knew what they wanted at that young age. They studied medicine or architecture to follow their parents, or they always dreamed about a specific professional path like saving the world as a scientist. They had strong opinions about life, politics, and social problems.
But the majority of people were more like me. I had no clue what I wanted. Not only professionally but in general in my life. I didn’t have my own opinions. I ordered the same drinks and food that other people ordered and just followed the crowd.
Most of the time, I sat at the table with others and listened without forming my own opinion.
I nodded frequently. When people asked me, I agreed with someone at the table because that was an easy way out.
I wasn’t selective at all and said yes to almost everything because I didn’t have any preferences. House party, rave party, day drinking, road trip, vodka, whiskey, soda, steak, burger, sushi.
Yes, yes, and yes.
I was open to everything. But I wanted nothing specific.
That openness felt like freedom, but it was actually confusion.
I wasted time on things that didn’t matter because I couldn’t tell what mattered. Time wasn’t as precious a resource as it is in adult life, so wasted time on poor choices didn’t seem like a huge problem.
But then, after graduating and starting adult life, the pressure and expectations started to grow.
Learning to Order Like James Bond
I heard from many people that I should figure out what I want. I got older, and in online dating apps, I saw that women put into their descriptions: “Only men who know what they want.”
Not just women.
Family, friends, and the whole society gave me this feeling that I had to figure out what I wanted. I read a lot of dating advice for men where people said that women expect me to decide. If they ask whether we sit outside the restaurant or inside, I have to have an answer even if it doesn’t matter to me at all.
I started learning how to order a drink properly like James Bond did. When the waiter asked me which vodka I wanted in my cocktail, I had an immediate answer. People nodded approvingly around me, and I felt great. I pretended to be the guy who knows what he wants, even if I didn’t care about the sort of vodka in my drink.
But knowing what I want wasn’t just something I learned to pretend.
It’s part of maturing. An inevitable process of pattern recognition we acquire based on positive and negative experiences.
Something bad happens, so we decide differently next time. The number of options decreases, and we collect a bunch of emotional associations in the back of our minds.
We get choosier and decide faster.
At a certain age, we’re able to answer more confidently about what we like and want.
We start saying no more often.
We stop considering the unknown as an option because we don’t feel we need it anymore.
Life becomes safer. Novelty turns into predictability and stability.
We order the same food in the restaurant. We drink the same cocktail. We travel to the same place every single year.
Everything that doesn’t fit into the things we know we want gets filtered out automatically.
I get a job opportunity via email and delete it immediately when I spot one keyword that implies something I know I don’t want.
This is efficiency. This is clarity. This is knowing what I want.
But what if this knowing (or believing to know) what I want keeps me stuck?
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When Knowing What You Want Becomes a Prison
I believe that knowing what we want can expire without us noticing it.
We change during our life, and something we thought we wanted can become something different today. But if we don’t give ourselves the chance to try, we’ll never figure it out.
At some point, knowing what we want turns into rigidity and fear.
We start saying no automatically to new and unknown opportunities while claiming we know what we want and this isn’t part of it.
For example, if somebody asks me if I want to try acro yoga, I say no automatically.
That’s not what I like. Without knowing exactly how it feels to actually do that kind of yoga practice.
I’ve had the situation so many times where I had the choice to watch a movie and I chose one I’d already watched 100 times over a new movie I’d never seen before. Just for safety reasons. The movie I’ve watched so many times, I know I’ll like it again. But the new movie can be bad, and then I’d waste my Sunday evening watching something I don’t enjoy.
I also like to book single rooms for myself in hostels or surf camps. I don’t sleep in a room with other people anymore. Not even giving it a chance.
So while living with the belief that I’ve figured out what I want, I’ve also started making my life smaller and smaller. I only repeat the well-known things I truly like and try to exclude novelty at all costs because it can be risky.
And there’s a self-strengthening process that makes it even worse.
We’ve all had that situation when somebody convinced us to do something we didn’t want to, because we already knew it wasn’t what we liked. And it turned out we were right. The experience was bad, and we say: “Never again. I knew it would be bad.” These moments lead us deeper into a less flexible and more rigid life.
And there are hidden costs to that rigidity:
What if the job I deleted had a culture I’d actually love, just described badly in the email?
What if the person who doesn’t fit my “type” could become someone important in my life?
What if the movie I skip becomes my new favorite film?
What if the shared room leads to a friendship that changes my perspective?
I’ve become so good at knowing what I want that I’ve stopped discovering what I might want.
The Narrowing: Age 20 vs. Age 38
Here’s what happens with age and clarity:
At 20:
Open to everything
No preferences
Said yes constantly
Tried everything
Confused, but flexible
At 38:
Clear about what I want
Strong preferences
Say no constantly
Try only familiar things
Decisive, but rigid
Neither is better. Both have costs.
At 20, I wasted time on things that didn’t fit me because I couldn’t tell what fit.
At 38, I miss opportunities that could fit me because I’ve decided in advance they don’t.
The filter that protects my time also blocks my growth.
The Grumpy Old Man Problem
If I don’t pay attention to these behaviors, I’ll end up as a grumpy old man who complains about everything that’s different from what I want and what I’ve gotten used to along the way.
This is obviously something I don’t want.
So I started including new experiences into my life, going against what my mind says in autopilot mode.
I went on a date with someone who didn’t fit the picture of what I want. The date was better than I thought. We didn’t date again, but we had a great time talking about life and sharing experiences about our dating lives.
When I went to a surf camp, I booked a shared room with one other person. It turned out great. There was a guy from the UK. We talked about movies and life, and it was fun.
In restaurants, I try to order something I’ve never tried before. Otherwise, I’d always eat the same thing and never expand my experiences.
I also say yes to social invitations I’d normally decline. I travel to places that don’t fit my “type” or try hobbies that seem unappealing at first.
Not because I’m confused about what I want.
But because rigidity masquerading as clarity is just fear.
Finding the Balance
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not something I push all the time.
It’s about balance.
I keep the clarity:
I know my core non-negotiables
I protect my boundaries
I stay decisive on obvious mismatches
I don’t waste time on things I know won’t work
But I rebuild flexibility:
When I realize I haven’t tried anything different in a couple of months, I do it consciously
I tell myself: this weekend is about trying something new
Then next time, I can stay in my comfort zone
But maybe my comfort zone changed or expanded from that last new experience
The goal isn’t to go back to my confused 20-year-old self who said yes to everything.
The goal is to hold both: knowing what I want while staying open to what I don’t yet know I need.
Why?
Because life is beautiful.
Experiences are the things we’ll never forget. They shape us and make our time here richer. Believing that we know what we want is not the same as truly knowing what we want. That’s why it might be worth challenging that belief from time to time.
The Paradox Remains
At 20, I was open but lost.
At 40, I’ll be clear but rigid.
The work isn’t choosing between them. It’s managing the tension.
Knowing what you want is power. But knowing what you want and refusing everything else is prison.
The real maturity isn’t just knowing what you want. It’s knowing what you want while remaining flexible about how it might show up.
Maybe the person who doesn’t fit your type teaches you something your type never could.
Maybe the experience outside your comfort zone expands what comfortable means.
Maybe the opportunity you delete contains exactly what you’re looking for, just packaged differently.
I still know what I want. But I’m learning to question my automatic nos.
Because clarity without curiosity is just another way to stay stuck.
Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David
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