We Cant Always Get What We Want (And That’s All Right)
David Oromith · 60 minutes · recorded February 25, 2026
The session opens with a short breathing practice in which we set an intention rather than a fixed outcome, and closes with a practice in which we invite the same gentle acceptance toward a lingering mood. David distinguishes wanting from attachment to a fixed result, using a noisy meditation and stuck traffic to show why disappointment is the gap between expectation and reality. He cites Shantideva: a problem with no solution is not worth being upset about. Questions touch a friendship with an unwell friend, and needs versus wants.
Recorded as an Insight Timer public webinar. David opens on a topic he thinks is close to universal, and not a small one: not simply wanting a thing and not getting it, but the way life goes wrong while we are working towards something good, and the frustration and the stories that come with it. The first half is diagnostic. Attachment is a klesha, something that afflicts the mind and disturbs its balance, and what it does is fixate on something genuinely positive and then exaggerate every good quality it has, until we need it. When reality does not oblige, aversion arrives, and the older word for it carries the sense of the body burning up. So the talk asks what you actually notice: the clenched fists, the tightening jaw, the neck and shoulders, the restlessness, because the body reads a thwarted expectation as a threat and reacts before the thinking does. The second half is practical, and turns on Shantideva: if a problem has a solution, get on with the solution, and if it has none, what use is being upset? From there, three things to do in the moment. Notice what is happening in the body. Get clear about what you control and what you do not. And turn back to what actually matters here, which is usually not whether the person you were trying to help is grateful.
Anger and aversion Attachment and craving Motivation and intention Patience, forbearance and acceptance Shantideva