I remember a year or two ago when that girl Jordin Sparks won American Idol.  When asked how she felt about being in the finals, she said, "...it's something I always wanted to do..."  I remember thinking how stupid it sounded:  A 17-year-old, saying something dreamy about a competition that had only been around for a few years.  For one, I tend to discount teenagers who think they know what they want, or what they've always wanted.  Teenagers are idiots.  That's why high school sweethearts break up.  Second, I tend to discount people who say they've always wanted something when that something hasn't been around very long.  "I've always wanted to be an American Idol, ever since I first saw it on TV two years ago." 

I guess my argument is about semantics.  It's trivial, obviously, but that's how I am.  I think that in order to say something about always wanting to do something, it needs to at least cover 50% of your lifetime.  So if you're 17 and you've always wanted to win American Idol, you better have been thinking about it since you were 8 or 9, which isn't possible because that was 1998 and it wasn't invented yet.  Sometimes I think about some of my desires like having fewer neighbors or driving across country on a motorcycle and I'm tempted to think, "Well, I've always wanted that."  But it's not true at all.  I've really only wanted it for maybe a few years.  I mean, heck, I actually wanted the exact opposite just a few years before I started really wanting this.  Yes, it's a matter of semantics, but I think it helps show how fickle our interests are and how we shouldn't get so caught up in our flavor of the week. #psychology