A friend asks where you’d like to eat.
“I don’t care.”
The answer comes so quickly that neither of you thinks much about it. You end up somewhere pleasant enough. The food is fine. The conversation is good. It isn’t until later that you realize you never actually stopped to ask yourself what you wanted.
For years, I assumed that was just part of my personality. Easygoing. Flexible. Happy to let someone else decide.
Then I began noticing the same answer appearing in other places.
What movie do you want to see?
I have nothing in mind.
What do you feel like doing this weekend?
Whatever you want.
What kind of work would you enjoy?
I don’t know.
Looking back, I don’t think those answers began in adulthood. As a child, there never seemed to be much time or space to discover what interested me. There always seemed to be something else that required my attention. By the time someone asked what I wanted, answering for myself didn’t come naturally.
Years passed before I noticed anything changing.
I found myself walking a little farther because I preferred one café over another. Reaching for certain books while leaving others on the shelf. Choosing one route home simply because I enjoyed it more. None of those choices mattered very much on their own, but together they began to answer a question I had rarely asked.
Not because I’d become someone different. For the first time, there seemed to be enough room to notice that sometimes I liked one thing more than another. Sometimes I had a preference. Sometimes I actually wanted something.
It turned out those weren’t new discoveries. They were simply discoveries.