Why wanting is stronger than having and how we can learn to want what matters

Imagine you’ve just upgraded your phone. It’s faster, sleeker, and its camera makes the world look like a cinematic masterpiece. For a few days — maybe even a week — you feel a spark of satisfaction. And then, mysteriously, that feeling evaporates. Suddenly, the new phone becomes just… your phone. The glow fades. The baseline resets. And soon enough, you find yourself looking at the next model.

Why does this happen?

Why, in a time of unprecedented comfort and abundance, do so many of us feel like something is missing?

It turns out the problem isn’t the phone.

It’s our brain.

And it’s not just your brain — it’s the human brain, shaped over tens of thousands of years for a world that no longer exists. This essay is about one of the most underappreciated truths in modern life: wanting is a far stronger force than having. When we grasp this — deeply, viscerally — it becomes clear why our society feels restless, why consumption seems endless, and why “enough” remains mysteriously out of reach.

But, more importantly, once we understand the mechanics of wanting, we discover something hopeful: we can redirect it. We can teach ourselves to want differently — and in doing so, we might just rewrite the story we’re living in.

Why those who have more want even more

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, wanting wasn’t optional — it was survival. In ancestral environments, wanting drove doing, and doing led to survival and reproduction. If you didn’t want more food, more warmth, more safety, you simply didn’t make it.

Those evolutionary traits were beneficial then.

But we carried them into a world of supermarkets, electricity, mass production, and on-demand everything — a modern civilization built on material abundance.

And our brain?

It never updated.

Today, dopamine drives pursuit, not fulfillment.

Our dopamine system rewards the chase, the anticipation, the forward motion. Once a goal is reached, dopamine subsides, the baseline resets, and we start wanting again.

What once helped us survive now fuels an endless cycle of restlessness.

A culture built on perceived scarcity

Yet the story gets stranger.

Despite unprecedented abundance, modern life seems built on perceived scarcity — the constant sense that something is missing and we must strive for more, even when we are surrounded by plenty.

This isn’t a mistake.

It’s by design.

We have built a civilization addicted to the promise of more:

• More upgrades
• More convenience
• More achievement
• More status
• More efficiency
• More consumption

But when “more” arrives, it doesn’t bring contentment.

It simply raises the baseline for what “enough” means in the next chapter of life.

And here’s the humbling insight:

No matter who we are —  rich or poor — we are all chasing the same mix of neurotransmitters.

More money doesn’t mean more serotonin or inner calm.

It merely buys a different path to the same temporary neurochemical high, which then retreats to baseline almost immediately. The billionaire and the teenager, refreshing their phone, are experiencing the same brief dopamine spike.

We’re not chasing objects.

We’re chasing a feeling.

And the feeling is designed to fade.

The system built on our old wiring

This creates a profound mismatch:

We brought stone-age wiring into a space-age world.

Edward O. Wilson's words say it so clearly

"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."

Our ancient brain pushes us to pursue endlessly.

Our modern economy gives us endless things to pursue.

And our culture depends on keeping us hungry, even when our bellies and lives are full.

“Our entire economy and culture run on that loop.”

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

But the realization also points to an unexpected source of hope:

If desire is shaped, it can be re-shaped.

And that insight came alive for my family in a very real, very personal way.

A personal story: How Kate Soper changed how we live

A few years ago, my wife and I were living exactly the kind of life the modern script encourages. Four people in an 80 m² apartment, feeling the cultural pressure to “progress”: get a bigger home, buy a car, take nicer holidays, earn more, accumulate more, climb higher.

Then we read Kate Soper.

Her idea of alternative hedonism hit us with the force of a revelation.

She argued that the issue isn’t that humans want too much — it’s that we’ve been taught to want the wrong things. She showed that people can learn to want differently, not by moral effort, but by discovering that a different kind of pleasure — slower, shared, connected, embodied — is not only possible, but better.

After reading Soper, we asked ourselves a question we had never truly examined:

“Do we actually want the things the world tells us to want?”

And the answer, quietly but unmistakably, was no.

So we made a deliberate choice — guided by her work — not to want more wealth or compete in the pursuit of more.

We chose a different economy of desire.

Instead of moving to a bigger home, we stayed in our small, cozy apartment.

Instead of upgrading to a car, we kept our beloved cargo bike.

Instead of exotic holidays alone, we chose local summerhouse trips with friends.

Instead of maximizing income, we began working part-time to maximize time.

It wasn’t easy.

Material wants are deeply ingrained, and the culture constantly whispers that we are falling behind. But Soper helped us see the illusion for what it was: not a law of nature, but a story we didn’t have to keep living. I’m aware that making this shift is a profound privilege not available to everyone, but it taught us what becomes possible when desire is redirected rather than denied.

Because what emerged surprised us.

We stopped asking, “How do we get more?”

And started asking, “What do we want more of?”

The answer was never material accumulation.

It was:

• More time
• More presence
• More connection
• More rest
• More slowness
• More community
• More childhood for our kids and more life for ourselves

Desire didn’t vanish.

It changed direction.

We learned to want better.

And here’s what makes Soper so important:

She teaches us how to hack our Paleolithic brain.

If wanting is stronger than having, then the point isn’t to suppress desire, but to redirect it toward things that don’t burn us out or accelerate ecological collapse.

Instead of letting ancient instincts push us deeper into exhaustion and overconsumption, Soper shows that we can program those instincts toward joy, community, time, and meaning—the very things our brain also rewards, but that consumer culture hides from us.

Kate Soper’s gift: A way out of the loop

Soper’s insight is disarmingly simple:

The trap isn’t desire.

The trap is what we’ve been taught to desire.

If wanting is our most powerful drive — and it is — then the way out of the consumerist spiral is not to extinguish desire, but to reroute it toward what actually brings meaning.

Her philosophy gave us permission to imagine a different kind of good life:

• Where time matters more than status
• Where relationships matter more than possessions
• Where rest matters more than rush
• Where community matters more than competition
• Where the best pleasures are the ones that cannot be bought

In other words:

A life where wanting doesn’t disappear, but becomes wiser.

The most radical question

All of this leads to a single, transformative question:

What do we want more of?

A bigger house?

Or a life spacious enough for connection?

A new car?

Or more time with our children?

More income?

Or more mornings that don’t feel rushed?

More things?

Or more life?

Here is the truth beneath the truth:

We will always want. The question is what we want for.

When we choose what to desire, we choose how to live.

And when enough people choose differently, culture shifts with them.

Wanting is powerful.

But wanting well — wanting wisely — is liberation.

It is the one revolution every person can begin today.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Track the real‑world impact behind the sustainability headlines. illuminem’s Data Hub™ offers transparent performance data and climate targets of companies driving the transition.