It’s Okay to Want More Even If You Love Your Life

Longing is often misunderstood.

Many people experience longing as something that feels uncomfortable or even wrong like evidence that they’re dissatisfied, ungrateful, or lacking contentment. It can feel almost taboo to admit you want more when, by most measures, your life is “good.” As if wanting anything beyond what you already have somehow cancels out appreciation for it.

But longing isn’t that simple.

We tend to think in black-and-white terms: either you’re content or you’re dissatisfied. Either grateful or restless. Yet longing lives in the gray space. It allows for complexity. You can deeply love your life and still feel a quiet pull toward something more, something different, at the same time.

I see this show up often. People shame themselves for wanting something beyond what they believe they should want. It happens in relationships when someone longs for deeper emotional intimacy rather than surface-level connection. It shows up in families, especially when parents provided a good life, but the path forward looks different from what they imagined or hoped for. It appears in careers too, when a job looks right on paper, pays well, and offers stability, yet still feels misaligned internally.

In these moments, longing isn’t about rejecting what’s been given. It’s about noticing that something inside has shifted and wondering whether anyone else will see or meet you there.

This is where the distinction between gratitude and settling becomes important.

Gratitude allows us to see what’s good, to acknowledge generosity, opportunity, and care. It keeps us open and grounded. Settling, on the other hand, often feels stagnant. Over time, it can become stale not because the life itself is bad, but because growth has slowed or stopped. Change is part of the natural order of life. Even when it moves slowly, it creates motion. Settling resists that movement.

I remember a season in my own life that captured this tension clearly. During my final year coaching college soccer, I genuinely loved the team we had. We had built a strong culture, shared meaningful moments, and made it all the way to the championship game. At the end of the season, part of me thought, Maybe I do want to stay.

At the same time, something else was happening. When I looked back through my journal from those months, I saw restlessness written all over the pages. A desire for a new challenge. A pull toward graduate school. Both things were true. I was content and I was ready for what came next. Those truths didn’t cancel each other out.

So why does longing feel so risky to admit?

Often, it’s because of what we fear it might say about us. We worry it means our current life isn’t enough. We worry it might hurt people we care about. We worry that if we say it out loud and it doesn’t happen we’ll feel exposed or disappointed. Longing asks us to name something without any guarantee that it will be fulfilled.

And culturally, even within therapy spaces, we sometimes oversimplify longing as something that needs to be fixed. But longing isn’t a problem to solve. It’s more like an inner message asking for attention. An honest signal that invites reflection rather than immediate action.

Longing doesn’t have to be grand. Sometimes it shows up in small, human ways. A high school student choosing to sit at a lunch table instead of eating alone because she longs for connection. A parent noticing they want more space to rediscover themselves after years of raising kids. A quiet desire to feel understood, rested, or seen.

In that sense, longing protects something essential. It keeps us alive to ourselves. It reveals where we’re still engaged, still hoping, still responsive to our inner world. Without it, parts of us begin to go numb.

What I want people to feel less ashamed of is this: longing doesn’t compete with what you have. It builds on it. It’s the next phrase in the song, not a rejection of the melody that came before.

You don’t get to have every longing. None of us do. But you do get to acknowledge them. And sometimes, simply listening to what you want, without judgment, is the first step toward a more honest life.

If there’s one thing I hope you do after reading this, it’s this: take a little time to consider your longings. Not to act on all of them. Not to overhaul your life. Just to notice. And maybe choose one small action that moves you gently in that direction.

Longings are part of life. They don’t mean something is wrong. They mean you’re still paying attention.

About the Author

Sarah Currie, Ph.D., LCMHC, is a licensed clinical mental health counselor at Halos Counseling. She works with individuals, couples, and families, helping them navigate life transitions, emotional complexity, and personal growth with clarity and compassion.