Right vs Want

This has been a weekend for movie watching for The Hubs and I. We've gone to the drive-in two nights in a row. On Friday night we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Thor (yes, it is a "late night, double-feature picturehow" drive-in, lol) and tonight (Saturday) we saw The Hangover 2 and Something Borrowed. All the movies were very good, but one of them struck a question in me that I've been unable to get out of my head. I wanted to discuss it here.

****SPOILER ALERT**** - If you have not seen Something Borrowed and do not want to know anything about it, you may want to skip this post.


Final Warning.



Okay, now that that's out of the way, for those who know nothing about Something Borrowed, it is a film based on the book of the same name by Emily Giffin. I read the book last year (as part Kristin's book challenge) so was familiar with the story. Basically, it goes like this: Rachel and Darcy are best friends. Darcy is rather self-involved and the center of everyone's attention (including her own). Rachel is shy and normally content to play second-fiddle to Darcy. As adults, Rachel makes a great friend in law school named Dex who she has feelings for but is too shy to say. Darcy meets Dex and decides she wants him for herself. Fast forward about 6 years. Darcy and Dex are engaged to be married. One night, at Rachel's 30th birthday party (which Darcy planned but spent the evening stealing the limelight), Darcy heads home early and Rachel and Dex drunkenly end up spending the night together. They are both horrified, but discover that they both have feelings for one another. They keep this info under wraps, though, and carry on a clandestine affair. In the meantime, Darcy starts up her own affair with Dex's best friend, Marcus. Over time, they all have to choose where they want to end up and whether they should choose to follow the path of what is right or the path of what they want.

This brings me to the question floating around my head: What is the better path - that which is right or that which leads to what we want?

It's easy to say that the path that leads to what we want is the right one, but that's not always the case. Often the path that is morally right doesn't lead to what we want in life. In those cases, it's necessary to weigh the facts and determine if what we want is more important than following the morally right path. What factors truly decide the answer?

I think we first have to look at whether what we want will lead to pain for others, physically or mentally. This is often the very thing that denotes if something is morally wrong. Next we have to factor what damage the thing we want may cause to those we love with how much we want it and determine if it is worth the cost.

Sometimes we find what we want just isn't worth the cost. Sometimes we find it is.

There is something I'm struggling with in my life right now. Without going into too much detail, there is something I want very, very badly. I know that it is not right for me to want this thing. Getting it is not the "right" path to take. Sometimes it is so far away that, even if I felt the cost were worth it, I probably wouldn't be able to reach it anyway. Other times, it's right there within my grasp. So far, I've felt the cost of it is too much. But my thoughts on it change daily.

When is what I want worth more than following the morally right path? Have you ever really wanted something but knew it wasn't right? What choice did you eventually make?