Randy Komisar (catchy last name huh, do you think is his real last name? lol) talks about "How Do You Find Your Passion and How Do You Pursue It?" on http://academicearth.org/lectures/how-do-you-find-your-passion-and-pursue-it
I haven't yet heard the ending because the streaming keeps going dead.
I am in my last year of university and this question, how do you know what you want is so very perplexing. You see I believe that if you really want something, anything, as improbable it may seem, you always achieve it. Therefore to know what I want was the starting point for me towards striving to achieve it.
Anyway to get to the question of how do you know what you want and how do you know what you want to do with your life. I have been thinking about it over the whole year and I have concluded....
You see we always hear people talking of doing something you love, however we love doing many things, which should I focus on. How does one know that they want to do law instead of being a scientist unless he tries both fields. Trying everything however may not be possible. So I have this theory that people simply chose something either because of the circumstances, through blind faith, like mini miny..... or just go with it and once such a choice is made then they grow to love it. Hence it is an acquired taste rely, I mean I have read somewhere that our mind does not care what we do as long as we do something and we don't bore ourself.
With my mate yesterday we were talking about peer pressure in respect to clubbing and drinking excesivly. I put it to him that everything is peer pressure. Society provides us things to do and we are pressurised either by society, i.e. adverts, or by our own self to escape boredom. Society provides us with the choices, we simply pick one, wanting, or passion, perhaps has nothing to do with it.
In the spirit of discussion, what are your thoughts on how do you know what you want?
You can also try standing apart from yourself and just watching what makes you happy. That's a bit complicated because your happiness is usually a function of the "trailing average" of what you've been doing lately. E.g. if you're happy having a beer in the evening, is it simply because you like beer, or because you like having a beer after having gotten something done that day?