Dave Kashen explains how to tell the difference between what you actually want and what your ego wants. He uses the "woman in the red dress" example to show how ego chases things to fill a sense of lack, while authentic wants come from somewhere else entirely.
He goes, yeah, but that's the girl in the red dress. Matrix. It's like the shiny object syndrome. Yeah. So how do you discern between girl in the red dress versus kind of this, you know?
Yeah, people ask this question around like, like whole body, you know, whole body. Yes. How do you follow your whole body? Yes. And right. If you're, if you're, or I guess a better way to ask if you're pursuing your wants. What's the distinction between hedonistic or distraction versus—
Yeah, exactly.
Authentic wants as I'm defining it, I guess. So, authentic wants come from your authentic self. The woman in the red dress, that kind of want tends to come more from ego. So, So let's unpack that distinction. Um, your ego self believes that there's, there's like a void, like there's something missing, and so it's trying to fill that void with external things, whether that's validation, right? Okay, if I, if I get this girl, that means that I'm hot shit, or that means that I'm attractive. And so I can feel better about myself, feel more valued. So, there's something missing like I'm not valuable enough, but if I can sleep with this girl, then I'll feel more valuable or if I could get this prize, I'll feel more valuable. So, those are more like the ego wants is their compensatory ego fixations like I need to get this money in order to feel whole, to feel valued, to feel safe, to feel free. So that's a good way, like if there's some sense you have that there's a lack and you're trying to fill the lack with something, that's probably not an authentic want the way I mean it. And one thing that's just practically is just to ask like, is this an authentic want or is this like a strategy where this is a little bit off of the leader prioritizing. So we can come back to that, but just to, um, but they may intersect. Um, but I like distinguishing between like, is this a strategy for how to meet an authentic want, or is this an authentic want, right? So like, okay, I want the woman in the red dress. Okay, that's probably a strategy. What's the strategy for? It's a strategy for feeling Valuable and attractive. Okay, so what I really want is to feel valuable and attractive.
