girard

To trace a desire to its origin before acting on it, asking whether the want is self-generated or borrowed from someone else's wanting.

Before any significant decision driven by desire, whether a purchase, a career move, or a life change, pause and write answers to three questions: (1) Who do I know who wants this or has this? (2) Did I want this before I saw them wanting it? (3) If no one I admired had this, would I still pursue it? If the answer to the third question is no, the desire is mimetic, not native. Note it and reconsider.

René Girard, the French-born historian and literary critic, argued that most human desire is mimetic: we want things not because we independently desire them but because we see others wanting them. He called this 'mimetic desire' and traced it through literature, religion, and culture. Girard showed that what people experience as their own deepest wants are often borrowed from a 'model' whose desires they unconsciously imitate. Before acting on a desire, trace it back. If it leads to another person's wanting rather than to your own, it is mimetic.

Before accepting the promotion, she girarded: listed every person whose career she admired and realized the desire for the title had come entirely from watching them, not from any work she actually wanted to do.