Someone asks you a simple question.
“So, what do you want now?”
And you don’t have an answer.
Not because the question is hard.
You just haven’t had much reason to ask it lately.
You probably know what you don’t want.
You don’t want every weekend accounted for.
You don’t want another goal just to have something to chase.
You don’t want to keep saying yes because that’s what people have come to expect from you.
That part is getting clearer.
“But what would you like instead?”
That’s where things go quiet.
Not empty.
Just quiet.
And I’ve been wondering if that’s because, for a lot of us, “What do I want?” hasn’t been the question for a very long time.
For years, the question was something else.
“What needs to be done?”
For Years, There Was Always a Reason.
Think about how many decisions you’ve made because they simply made sense.
You worked because there were bills.
You showed up because people counted on you.
You took care of things because somebody had to.
You said yes because explaining no felt like more work.
You made the responsible choice.
Then the next one.
And the one after that.
None of this means you didn’t want the life you built.
You probably did.
It’s just that after enough years, what you wanted and what made sense can get braided together so tightly you stop noticing which is which.
Maybe you didn’t need to notice.
Life kept handing you the next thing.
A deadline.
A mortgage.
A kid who needed a ride.
A parent who needed a call.
There was always an answer to “What should I do next?”
Then, somewhere along the way, the old answers start fitting differently.
Being busy doesn’t feel quite as satisfying.
Some goals lose their pull.
Things you used to look forward to start feeling like things to get through.
And suddenly, after years of knowing what needed to be done, you’re standing in front of a different question.
“What do you want?”
You’d think by now that would be the easy one.
Maybe all those years of having an answer are exactly what make it so hard.
The Answers May Not Sound Important Enough
Maybe part of the problem is that we’re expecting a bigger answer.
“What do you want?”
Well...
A new purpose.
A big adventure.
Some exciting second act.
Something that sounds worth telling people about.
But what if the real answers are much smaller than that?
Maybe you’ve started protecting that first hour in the morning before anyone needs you.
Maybe you keep thinking about something you haven’t done in twenty years.
Maybe you’ve noticed you like taking the long way home.
Or talking to one person instead of working a room of twenty.
Maybe the things you look forward to now are things your younger self barely would’ve noticed.
Dinner at home.
An afternoon with nowhere to be.
A conversation that runs long.
Sitting outside until the air gets cool enough to send you in.
None of that sounds particularly impressive.
Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to overlook.
For most of our lives, wanting something meant going somewhere.
The promotion.
The bigger house.
The finish line.
There was always something at the end of the wanting.
But maybe what you want now doesn’t need to lead anywhere.
Maybe you want more of something for the simplest reason there is.
You like the way you feel when you’re there.
Or maybe more than that.
You like who you are when nothing is pulling you away from it.
That may not sound like much of an answer.
I’m starting to think it might be one of the better ones.
Maybe You’ve Already Been Leaving Yourself Clues.
I don’t know that we figure this out by sitting down one Saturday morning and deciding what the next ten years should look like.
I’m not sure I’d want to.
That sounds exhausting.
I think the clues show up in smaller places.
What you find yourself looking forward to.
The conversation you wish lasted another hour.
The thing you keep thinking about even though there’s no good reason to do it.
The afternoon when you realize you haven’t looked at your phone in three hours.
Even that little flicker of relief when plans get canceled before you remember you’re supposed to be disappointed.
None of these moments gives you the whole answer.
But they’re not nothing.
Maybe they’re worth paying attention to.
Because perhaps the question after 50 isn’t:
“What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?”
That’s a lot to ask of yourself on a Tuesday morning.
Maybe the better question is smaller.
“What have I been wanting more of lately?”
Not what would be productive.
Not what would impress anyone.
Not what makes the most sense on paper.
Just what you keep leaning toward when nobody is telling you where to go.
You may not know what you want next.
Maybe you don’t need to.
Maybe the answer doesn’t arrive all at once.
Maybe it shows up as an extra hour here.
A canceled plan there.
Something you keep thinking about.
A Tuesday afternoon that feels better than it has any right to.
Little things.
Easy to dismiss.
Until you realize you’ve been answering the question for a while.
You just weren’t calling them answers.
I’m curious...
“What have you found yourself wanting more of lately that surprised you?”
— Floyd