One of the strangest things that can happen to a person is to become so good at living the life expected of them that, when someone finally asks what they want, they have no answer.
Sometimes the most upsetting thing is not losing something you wanted. It is realising that you no longer know whether you want anything at all.
Someone asks what you would like for your birthday, and your mind goes blank. A friend suggests a holiday and you cannot think of anywhere you particularly want to go. You scroll through opportunities, courses, new jobs, beautiful houses, unfamiliar cities and all the things that once seemed exciting, yet nothing catches hold of you for very long. Even when life gives you choices, you find yourself standing before them without a strong preference.
“I don’t know.”
It sounds harmless enough. We say it when we are undecided, tired or genuinely indifferent. But there are people for whom those three words have become a description of something much larger. They are not struggling to choose between two things. They have become uncertain about what they would choose at all.
That can be difficult to explain because, from the outside, nothing may appear to be wrong. They may have a job, relationships, responsibilities, plans and even achievements they once worked hard to obtain. They can function perfectly well. What has become difficult is the private experience of being moved by something and knowing, without having to reason it out, I want that.
Desire is often imagined as something loud. We picture ambition, passion, a dream pursued relentlessly, the person who knows exactly what they want and refuses to give up until they get it. Real desire is not always like that. Sometimes it is simply a small sense of attraction towards something: a book you want to read, a place you would like to see, a subject you suddenly want to learn, a kind of work that interests you, a person whose company you enjoy, or an idea that makes you curious enough to keep thinking about it.
When that inner movement becomes difficult to recognise, life can begin to feel strangely flat even when it is full.
There are many reasons this can happen.
A person may have spent years making choices almost entirely based on what was necessary. School had to be completed. Work had to be found. Bills had to be paid. A family had to be raised. A difficult season had to be survived. Decisions were made according to urgency, practicality and what was possible at the time.
There is nothing wrong with that. Much of adult life is made up of necessary things.
The difficulty comes when necessity becomes the only language in which a person knows how to make decisions.
“What do you need to do?” becomes much easier to answer than “What would you like to do?”
“What is practical?” replaces “What interests you?”
“What can you afford?” becomes more familiar than “What would you choose if money were not the first question?”
After enough years, the difference between those questions can become surprisingly difficult to feel.
There is also the possibility that desire has become associated with disappointment. We do not always stop wanting because we have no capacity for desire. Sometimes we stop paying attention to it because wanting has hurt before.
A dream may have failed. An opportunity may have disappeared. Something deeply wanted may have remained out of reach despite years of effort. A relationship may have taught us that what we hoped for was not what another person could give. A prayer may have seemed to go unanswered.
Eventually, the mind can learn a peculiar form of protection: do not get too attached to what you want.
It is not always conscious. No one necessarily sits down and decides to stop dreaming. It happens in smaller ways. You become less likely to imagine possibilities because imagination creates expectations, and expectations can be disappointed. You become satisfied with whatever is available. You tell yourself that you are no longer interested.
Then, one day, someone asks what you want, and there is nothing readily available to say.
This is one reason the loss of desire can be so difficult to recognise. There may be no obvious crisis attached to it. You are simply less curious than you used to be. Things that once fascinated you no longer hold your attention for long. You can admire what other people are doing without wondering whether you might want something similar. You are able to appreciate beauty without feeling drawn towards it. You have become very good at saying, “That’s nice,” without ever asking yourself whether it is something you would like for your own life.
And perhaps the most disturbing part is that you may not even miss the person you used to be.
You may remember being more ambitious, more adventurous or more curious, but memory does not always tell us what changed. We simply know that something that once came naturally now requires effort.
Psychological research offers one useful way of understanding why this can happen. Self-Determination Theory, developed by psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, identifies autonomy, competence and relatedness as important psychological needs. Autonomy includes experiencing our choices as genuinely our own. It is not the same thing as doing whatever we please; it is the sense that there is something inside us participating in the decision.
When that sense of personal choice becomes weak, even a life filled with activity can feel strangely detached.
This is why knowing what you want is not a trivial matter. Desire can tell us something about where our curiosity lives, what we value, what gives us meaning and what parts of ourselves may still be developing. It does not mean every desire must be acted upon. Some will be impractical. Some will change. Some will disappear once we understand them better.
But we cannot make thoughtful choices about desires we have never allowed ourselves to notice.
Perhaps this is where returning to desire begins: not with a grand plan, but with paying attention.
What catches your interest before you have time to dismiss it? What do you find yourself reading about when nobody has asked you to? What kind of conversation leaves you wanting more? What have you admired in other people’s lives without allowing yourself to admit that some part of you wants it too? What would you try if you were not required to justify its usefulness?
These questions are not instructions to reinvent your life. They are invitations to become curious about yourself again.
And curiosity can be surprisingly revealing.
You may discover that the career you thought you wanted no longer appeals to you. You may realise that something you dismissed as unrealistic still matters. You may find that what you want has become much simpler than it once was. Or you may discover that you have been living with very little desire for so long that the first thing you need is not an answer but the permission to ask the question without immediately shutting it down.
That process can bring its own discomfort. Wanting something creates vulnerability. Once you know what matters to you, you also have to face the possibility that it may not happen. But there is a difference between protecting yourself from disappointment and becoming so protected that nothing can reach you.
Perhaps that is why this question deserves more attention than we usually give it: What do you want?
Not what would make sense. Not what would impress people. Not what you should want at your age or stage of life. Not what someone else has convinced you would make you happy.
What actually draws you?
You may not know yet. That is not failure, and it does not mean there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Sometimes a person needs time to recognise a desire that has been neglected for years.
So start smaller than a life-changing decision.
Notice what interests you. Notice what you look forward to. Notice what makes you curious. Notice what you envy, not as a reason to resent someone else’s life, but as a clue that something in theirs may have touched something unfinished in yours.
And if nothing comes immediately, let that be true without forcing an answer.
There are seasons when desire goes quiet enough that all you can hear is uncertainty. It may take time before something stirs again.
But perhaps the important thing is that you have begun asking.
Because sometimes finding out what you want does not begin with knowing the answer.
It begins with believing that the question still belongs to you.
A lawyer and equity advocate, Lillian is the publisher of Law & Society Magazine. She can be reached at Lillianokenwa@gmail.com, X: @OkenwaLillian.
