What Your Ego Still Wants
Daily Chase #119
The writer Arthur Brooks has a powerful annual practice he calls the reverse bucket list.
Every year, he sits down and writes a list of all the things his ego is still craving - the book sales, the professional accolades, the social media followers, the financial milestones. Then he crosses them off. Not because the act magically makes those desires disappear, but because it brings them out of his subconscious and into his conscious awareness.
We spend most of our lives chasing things we think will make us happy. When I get that promotion, then I’ll be satisfied. When I hit six figures, then I’ll feel secure. When I get that recognition, then I’ll feel worthy.
But as podcaster Chris Williamson has pointed out, how many goals have you already achieved that you once believed would make you happy?
The pattern is predictable.
We reach the goal, feel briefly satisfied, then immediately set our sights on the next milestone. The happiness we expected never quite arrives, or if it does, it’s fleeting.
This is why 13th century philosopher Thomas Aquinas called money, power, pleasure, and prestige the four idols that waste our lives.
As Brooks and Oprah Winfrey explain in “Build the Life You Want,” these aren’t inherently evil, but they become distractions that numb us to emotional circumstances we dislike and feel we can’t control.
The reverse bucket list forces us to get honest about which of these idols still has a hold on us.
Are we still secretly hoping that the right amount of wealth will solve our problems? Are we still chasing the approval of people who don’t really matter to us? Are we still believing that enough pleasure will fill the void we feel inside?
Once you identify your particular idol - the one that’s most likely to lead you astray - you can recognize it when it shows up in your decision-making. You can catch yourself before you take the job purely for the money, or say yes to the opportunity purely for the status, or make the choice purely for the temporary pleasure.
The goal isn’t to never want anything. The goal is to want the right things - the pillars that actually build happiness rather than the idols that merely distract from its absence.
Chasing Excellence is an audience-supported project. To go deeper & to help us do even more, consider:
Subscribing to get our free posts or upgrading to receive the Daily Chase posts & the ChaseTracker app.
Grabbing one of our books: Chasing Excellence, Unlocking Potential, or The ABCs of Being Happy & Healthy.
Supporting one of our fantastic show sponsors.