Do we only do things we want to do?

[DodosAreDead]

So, this is just a bit of a thought I had while literally brushing my dog. If it seems dumb, uninteresting, etc etc, I apologize. I've just been wondering about what 'wanting' to do something means. We've all heard the old 'sometimes in life you have to do things you don't want to do' piece of advice from well-meaning grandmas, right? But I wonder if that's actually true. 
If we think of 'want' as something we do because we want the direct enjoyment or satisfaction derived form it, then yes, we often do have to do things we don't want to do. But if we think of it in a sense that we 'want' to avoid something, then indirectly we 'want' to do something else that's going to result in the avoidance of the thing we actually want to avoid, right? 
For example, I don't like to learn about chemistry. So I don't really want to do it. But I had to learn about chemistry in school. If I hadn't gone to my required chemistry class, I'd face reprimanding, punishment, suspension, expulsion, etc. I wouldn't be able to officially graduate from high school, and so I wouldn't be able to go to college. Those are all things I 'want' to avoid. Going to chemistry class = avoiding that. Therefore going to chemistry class = ...something I 'want' to do?
According to this logic, we only ever do things we want to do, and we do not, actually, have to do things we don't want to do. 

I have a strong feeling this is a pretty incoherent and illogical way of thinking, but can't really put my finger on where I'm going wrong. Thoughts?

[downbeatplumb]

Some of the time I do what I want, the rest of the time I do what I must.

[Whateverist]

Some of the time I do what I want, the rest of the time I do what I must to avoid the shit I really don't want - foreclosure, termination, divorce, disorderliness, etc.

Added on my bolded to make it even more explicit.  (Reads better without it though.)

[Aliza]

You went to chemistry class because you wanted to graduate more than you wanted to avoid chemistry.

[no one]

Don't..............want...........to..........post...........her..........gald I did not do that!

[bennyboy]

I'd say we do whatever we're motivated to do. Want is one motivation. So is threat of punishment. So is fear of social castigation if duties aren't performed. So are primary goals-- I may not WANT to clean a toilet, but if I'm a janitor, my desire to get paid will make me do it anyway.

[Belacqua]

So, this is just a bit of a thought I had while literally brushing my dog. If it seems dumb, uninteresting, etc etc, I apologize. I've just been wondering about what 'wanting' to do something means. We've all heard the old 'sometimes in life you have to do things you don't want to do' piece of advice from well-meaning grandmas, right? But I wonder if that's actually true. 
If we think of 'want' as something we do because we want the direct enjoyment or satisfaction derived form it, then yes, we often do have to do things we don't want to do. But if we think of it in a sense that we 'want' to avoid something, then indirectly we 'want' to do something else that's going to result in the avoidance of the thing we actually want to avoid, right? 
For example, I don't like to learn about chemistry. So I don't really want to do it. But I had to learn about chemistry in school. If I hadn't gone to my required chemistry class, I'd face reprimanding, punishment, suspension, expulsion, etc. I wouldn't be able to officially graduate from high school, and so I wouldn't be able to go to college. Those are all things I 'want' to avoid. Going to chemistry class = avoiding that. Therefore going to chemistry class = ...something I 'want' to do?
According to this logic, we only ever do things we want to do, and we do not, actually, have to do things we don't want to do. 

I have a strong feeling this is a pretty incoherent and illogical way of thinking, but can't really put my finger on where I'm going wrong. Thoughts?

Because we are just animals who live in a society, and not rational angels, we don't have to make sense.

It's perfectly possible to want opposite things at the same time. I want to chase all my desires; I want civilization to control things so I'm safe. I want to get the benefits; I don't want to put in the effort. Etc.

So we balance the different wants. But that means giving up on some of them. Which means that even if we fulfill a lot of them, we will still be miserable. Oh well.

This was the TL;DR version of Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.

[Angrboda]

One of the interesting facts is that, for certain decisions, that we decide anything at all. I'm not going to address the OP at the moment, at least not directly, but I think the lion's share of our decision making process is driven by an attempt to manage and minimize anxiety or discomfort. This comprises two complimentary strategies. First, decreasing activities which increase our anxiety. Second, by increasing activities that decrease our anxiety. Many people suggest that desire for happiness plays a role, but I'm not sure where or if it does. Regardless, when faced with choices, sometimes for whatever reason, we delay and delay our decision, perhaps because of complexity, perhaps out of conflicting goals, whatever. Like Buridan's ass, we can get stuck between multiple demands such that we can't resolve them rationally. But the peculiar thing is that we don't stay in that state. As time proceeds, our anxiety about the decision increases. Eventually we succumb to the anxiety over our indecision and make a choice, whether we are ready or not. It's like the fuse on a bomb. Once lit, it will only go on so long before we force ourselves into one state or another. It's like a silent timer in our heads, preventing us from getting stuck. It's weird.

Which brings me to another digression. How do we have a sense of time? We think of ourselves as living in the moment, but somehow we're able to stitch together the relations between moments to construct a sense of time passing, such that we can, roughly, say when a minute has passed, as opposed to five minutes, as opposed to an hour. Surely we don't have timers in our heads which alert us to the passage of time, but how does that happen? Why aren't we more like the person with no long term memory for whom every moment is new? Why isn't every moment like the first moment, a stunning and unexpected revelation?

Final digression. Why do we accept the fact that we sleep, yet are the person who went to sleep the night before. When I go to sleep, I never remember falling asleep. And I don't remember being asleep; I was unconscious. Yet each night we sleep as if nothing happened, and the renewal of consciousness each morning is treated as nothing at all. Yet if we lose consciousness at any other time during the day, it's a totally different experience. Why is that?

[bennyboy]

Which brings me to another digression.  How do we have a sense of time?  We think of ourselves as living in the moment, but somehow we're able to stitch together the relations between moments to construct a sense of time passing, such that we can, roughly, say when a minute has passed, as opposed to five minutes, as opposed to an hour.  Surely we don't have timers in our heads which alert us to the passage of time, but how does that happen?  Why aren't we more like the person with no long term memory for whom every moment is new?  

This question poses special fuckery for me this year.  I went in for gastro and endoscopy procedures, and the doctor told me, "You'll be able to respond to commands, but you won't remember anything."  Eh, what's that now?  I'll be conscious, or not?  Turns out, I vaguely dreamed about watching a video monitor, and that this really happened.

When I woke up, I felt something like a rubber dildo going in and out of my mouth and throat about five times.  I definitely, 100% had the experience of that happening, just like that.  Bloopadoopadoopadoop, I had a clear sensation of it, as clear as anything else.

Right away, I opened my eyes.  Nobody there, even though I knew for sure (gnostic, as in "I know, and no fucking way I could be getting this wrong.") that it just happened moments earlier.

The physical reality is that they did insert and take out the scope a few times, over the course of an hour or so, and that when I woke up, nobody had been there for about ten minutes.  That thing I knew from direct and self-validating experience to be absolutely true-- I had it wrong.


I've done drugs before, in reasonably copious quantities even, but never before has my sense of the steady flow of time been so egregiously contradicted.  I mean. . . I don't know what a second means anymore, or an entire lifetime.

[tackattack]

In response to the OP,
I believe the flaw you're detecting is in your definition of want. If you define want as something we do for a desired outcome that adds complexity with conflicting desires, instincts and threats. If you define want as to feel a need, then I believe that simplifies the equation. We have lots of wants. Wanting something is the detection of the need which lights the fuse on the decision. I believe action come from volition, cause and affect, a want is one potential case and the act is the volition or implementation of the decision.

IMO, I would have said I only do what I decide to do, whether I want to or not.

Jormungandr, check out chronception as a complex multi organ sensory input to track time or possibly even a mental version of sensory modalities where we stitch together events mentally into our own facebook timeline?