Why knowing what you want isn't enough

This week I have a message for you—an essay on becoming who you want to be.

You know who you want to be. You've thought about it. You have a clear picture of the goals, the habits, the person you're working toward.

And then you spend two hours scrolling.

In that moment, becoming that person feels abstract. It's a future thing. A tomorrow thing. Right now, the gap between who you are and who you want to be doesn't feel urgent enough to close.

This is the quiet discontent most people live with.

The days pass without becoming. Time is spent on things that don't move you toward the person you can see in your mind. And every night, when you're alone with your thoughts, you feel the misalignment—the gap between what you want for your life and what you're actually doing with it.

The problem isn't that you don't want it enough. The problem is that the connection between what you do today and who you become is too distant. Too abstract. So when it's time to choose the hard thing over the easy thing, you can't feel what's at stake.

And if you can't feel it, you won't do it.

The things that matter operate on a different timeline.

Scrolling tonight doesn't ruin your life tomorrow. Skipping the work doesn't kill your career by morning. The consequences are distant, abstract, cumulative. So your brain doesn't treat them as real stakes.

You know exactly why something matters. You can intellectualize your goals perfectly. But intellectual understanding doesn't create action.

What creates action is feeling what's at stake. Not understanding it—feeling it.

And right now, the stakes are too abstract to feel.

You dig until you hit bedrock.

Most people set goals from the surface. "I want to get in shape." "I want to build something." "I want to be more disciplined."

Surface goals abandon you when it's hard. They're too distant, too vague.

What moves you is what's underneath.

Ask yourself why you want it. Then ask why again. Keep going until you hit something you can't explain—something that just is.

I want to stop wasting time.

Why?

Because I want to build something that matters.

Why does that matter?

Because I need to prove I'm capable of more than this.

Why?

Because the idea of settling, of being less than I could be— it feels like dying.

There. That's bedrock.

You can't explain it to someone else. You can't justify it. It's irrational and true at the same time. That's how you know it's real.

The work is making the connection immediate and personal.

Every time you choose the scroll, you're choosing to be someone who settles. Someone who knows what they want but doesn't act on it.

Every time you choose the work, you're choosing the opposite.

That's the real stake. Not your future self six months from now. Who you are right now, in this choice.

When you make that connection the decision changes. The choice gets harder to ignore.

It's not "scroll or work."

It's "settle or become."

Your brain keeps score. Every promise you make and break. Every time you choose comfort over intention. Every time you drift and don't come back.

That quiet discontent you feel is the gap between who you're voting to be and who you want to be.

The truth is, you won't catch yourself before you drift most of the time. You'll be an hour into scrolling before you realize. That's fine. That's human.

What matters is what happens when you notice.

When you catch yourself mid-scroll, mid-avoidance, mid-whatever—you face a choice. Keep going because "I've already wasted an hour." Or stop right there and choose differently.

Like meditation. You drift. You notice. You come back.

Back to the choice: settle or become. Again and again. That's the work.

Living with intention is noticing faster. Coming back quicker. Feeling the stake of each choice clearly enough that the decision becomes obvious.

You'll remember the moment where you had the choice and nobody was watching.

If you scrolled, you'll feel it. The gap stayed the same.

If you chose differently, you'll feel something else. Alignment.

The quiet feeling of:

I said I would and I did.

That’s the feeling you’re after. And when you feel it once, you want it again.

Tomorrow the alarm goes off. You're tired. You could stay in bed. But you remember last night. The proof that you're someone who moves, who acts, who follows through.

So you get up. And you get to work.

You get to choose it. Right now. In the next moment nobody sees but you.

Until next week,

—Johnathan

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