want

I think we have this concept engrained in us, especially those who grew up religious, that giving the people what they want (including ourselves) is inherently indulgent; it's decadent. But my perspective is that there are so many times when we can give people what they want (including ourselves) without crossing any boundary-- moral, logistical, or otherwise.

It seems to be a(nother) nasty offshoot from the concept of original sin: if we're inherently bad, then our first hopes and inclinations are going to be wicked (as in ", no one mourns the"). But since that's not a concept that I feel serves any helpful purpose beyond corralling people back into church settings (which are not inherently bad, ironically), I've dismissed it and its seedy spawn. In other words, I reject the assumption that our first thoughts are indeed not our best thoughts and that giving people what they want is equivalent to giving a misbehaving child a treat.

What if! we started from a baseline of "how do we meet people's (including our own) expressed needs?" From there, if our pursuits are met with a moral/logistical/miscellaneous snag, we reroute to a less idyllic solution, instead of assuming that our best course of action will always be that which compromises our high hopes and our naïve, inherently wicked little wishes?