How To Work Out What You Want To Want From Life | Kyle Eschenroeder | Modern Wisdom Podcast 189

Kyle Eschenroeder is a marketer and a writer. You do not want to live a life that you regret at the end of it. But working out what you WANT to want is a topic no one ever talks about. When you follow your default desires, you're much more likely to find yourself at a place in life that you didn't really want to be, or mean to get to. Today, we learn how to step into our programming and actively design our direction in life. I love this topic. Sponsor: Sign up to FitBook at https://fitbook.co.uk/join-fitbook/ (enter code MODERNWISDOM for 50% off your membership) Extra Stuff: Read Kyle's Blog Post - http://www.kyleschen.com/2017/04/11/what-do-you-want-to-want/ Follow Kyle on Twitter - https://twitter.com/kyleschen Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ #meaning #purpose #philosophy - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Chris WilliamsonhostKyle Eschenroederguest

Jun 26, 20201h 34mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Designing Your Desires: Stop Chasing Defaults, Start Choosing Life

Chris Williamson and Kyle Eschenroeder explore Kyle’s long-form essay, “What Do You Want to Want?”, arguing that most people live by unexamined, memetic desires rather than consciously chosen ones. They distinguish between shallow, externally programmed wants (fame, wealth, ease, extraordinariness) and deeper, self-authored desires that lead to meaning and eudaimonia.
Using philosophy, psychology, and personal stories, they show how default wants create lives of regret, like “winning at the wrong game,” and how reframing struggle, success, money, and “being special” can radically change life trajectories. Practical tools include community design, internal scorecards, journaling, and shadow work to uncover and reshape what we truly want.
The conversation is positioned as an “active” episode: listeners are repeatedly invited to examine their own lives, ask what they genuinely want to want, and recognize that programming their desires is tantamount to programming their future.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Ask yourself regularly: What do I want to want?

Most of your current desires are inherited from culture, peers, and advertising. Consciously asking what you want to want exposes unchosen defaults and lets you begin deliberately reprogramming your motivational system.

Beware of living by default, memetic desires.

Memetic desire (wanting what others around you want) can lead you to invest your life in goals—careers, relationships, status—that you never truly chose, resulting in “winning at the wrong game” and deep regret.

Choose a life of meaningful struggle over an “easy” life.

Research on stress, retirement, and post-traumatic growth suggests that embracing challenge makes us more alive, resilient, and satisfied; chasing comfort and ease often accelerates decline and drains life of meaning.

Shift from wanting to be somebody to wanting to do something.

Fame and attention are fragile, addictive, and place your happiness in others’ hands. Orienting toward real impact and meaningful work creates a stable foundation so that when attention fades, your purpose and satisfaction remain.

Replace the pursuit of extreme wealth with cultivating a frugal heart.

Money is like gasoline for a road trip: essential but not the point. Learning to enjoy simple, low-cost experiences lowers your “burn rate,” increases freedom, and prevents the endless treadmill of needing more to feel okay.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

If we don't cut to the core and program our wants, our desires, then our best-case scenario is to be the most successful, rich, or famous slave.

— Kyle Eschenroeder

You can win the game and then realize you were playing the wrong game the whole time.

— Kyle Eschenroeder

The modern devil is cheap dopamine.

— Naval Ravikant (quoted by Kyle Eschenroeder)

My life is for itself and not a spectacle.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (quoted by Kyle Eschenroeder)

When you are so interested in your own game, you don't care about the score on a game you're not playing.

— Kyle Eschenroeder

The concept of “What do you want to want?” and memetic desireDangers of default desires: fame, extreme wealth, ease, and extraordinarinessReframing struggle: wanting a meaningful life of challenge vs. an easy lifeShifting from wanting to be somebody to wanting to do somethingDeveloping a “frugal heart” and redefining wealth, money, and freedomEmbracing the ordinary, self-acceptance, and shadow work to find true desiresPractical methods to reprogram desires: community, internal scorecards, reflection

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