opinion
Most people secretly want things they don’t feel allowed to want. Not because the want is unclear, but because it feels forbidden. We learn, slowly and socially, that desire is embarrassing. That it is unrealistic. That it is dangerous. That it is a setup for humiliation. So before the world ever has the chance to reject us, we pre-reject ourselves. We soften what we long for. We edit our hunger into something quieter, more acceptable and more survivable.
Giving yourself permission to accept your desires is the most radical form of self-acceptance there is. Because desire is not something ‘above’ you. It is not a fantasy hovering beyond your life. It is your identity in an unfinished state. To accept what you want is to accept who you are in forward motion.
Why desire feels dangerous: Wanting is not neutral in early life. Wanting exposes you - to not being chosen, to being embarrassed, to discovering that the world may not meet you at your level of hunger. So most people learn to shrink the want before it gets the chance to shrink them. They say, “I don’t care that much.” “It’s just a fantasy.” “I don’t even like him.” This is not humility. This is emotional self-protection. If you never fully admit the desire, you never have to risk humiliation. If you never trust the desire, you never have to let it orient you. This is why so many people say they “don’t know what they want.” Most of the time, that isn’t confusion - it is fear of consequence.
Desire is not fantasy - desire is identity: You do not desire arbitrarily. You desire what already matches your internal architecture. Desire is identity in unrealised form. If you were not built for something in a fundamental way, it would not appear in your imagination as longing. It would appear only as abstraction. You cannot ache for a future your psychology cannot conceptually hold. This is why trusting your desires is not naïve. It is structural.
This is why desire persists across years. Why it repeats. Why it returns under different disguises. Desire is not a hunger for what you lack. Desire is memory of what you already are - before it has taken shape. Some wants feel different. They feel familiar. They feel like déjà vu. They feel like truth rather than fantasy. You are not inventing a future. You are recognising one.
Your desires are signals: Your desires are not random wishes - they are signals. Signals of where your system already belongs. Signals of what your life is quietly organising around, even before anything visibly changes. Your life already proves this pattern. The people you felt resonance with became relationships. The aesthetics you admired became your signature.
The environments you longed for became your reality. Nothing arrived by randomness.
It arrived by readiness. This is why desire works like a compass, not a calendar. It does not tell you when. It tells you north. And that is why “not yet” is not “never.” It simply means the structure has not matured enough yet to hold what it already recognises.
The exact moment life switches from fear to creation: There is a precise internal moment when everything changes. You move from, “What if I can’t have it?” to, “This exists because I am becoming the kind of person who naturally lives it.”
At that moment, desire stops feeling like a threat. It becomes instruction. Fear only exists when you think desire is a gamble. Once you realise desire is identity in forward motion, fear loses its logic. You no longer chase. You prepare. And preparation feels calm where chasing feels frantic. This is the exact moment life moves from reaction to creation. Not because you forced anything - but because you stopped invalidating what was already orienting you.
Desire is identity: Once you understand that desire is identity, the logic of “never” collapses. You do not desire randomly. You desire what already matches your internal architecture. Which means the future you want is not imaginary - it is in formation. “Not yet” is not rejection. It is immaturity of structure. But most people cannot tolerate that in-between state. So they dilute hope. They say, “It’s probably never going to happen.” “That kind of life isn’t for me.” “Never” feels safer than “not yet.” Because “not yet” still asks you to become. And becoming is effort. Becoming is exposure. Becoming is risk. So, people amputate their futures pre-emptively by declaring them impossible - not as truth, but as anaesthesia. But structurally, “never” almost never means impossible. It almost always means the system is not developed enough yet to hold the life it already recognises.
Why desire often fails early: Many desires fail in their first attempts. Not because they are wrong. But because they require a more mature nervous system and a stronger relational spine. Early failure is not disproof. It is premature contact. You touched a future your structure could see - but not yet carry. That is why certain dreams break in your hands the first time you reach for them. Not because they’re false - but because you were still building the version of yourself that could hold them without collapse. This is also why the same desire often returns years later - with a different body and a different environment. The desire never left. You grew.
Your life cannot help but look like you: Once you understand that desire is identity in motion, your outer life stops looking accidental. Your relationships, your cities, your work, your aesthetic, your pace - none of it is random. It is your inner world translated into matter over time. The environments you end up in mirror the scale of your nervous system. The intimacy you experience mirrors the depth of your emotional capacity. The work that finds you mirrors what you are able to sustain responsibility for. This is why trusting your desires means trusting the architecture of your life. You are not forcing direction - you are agreeing with it. Life does not change through force. It changes through coherence. You do not get the life you want by chasing it from the outside. You get it by becoming the person who can naturally live it from the inside.
The permission slip: The real work is not manifestation. The real work is quieter - and far more dangerous. It is admitting what you want without self-betrayal. Accepting what that reveals about who you are. Trusting your desires enough to let them orient you. Letting identity move before fear. Because the life you want is not something you reach for.
It is something you grow into. Because the life you want…is the life you already are.
Neshmeeya Abbas is an author based in London. She can be reached at [email protected]
