How many people care or think at all about "what kind of person they want to be" vs what they want to have?
The number one piece of advice given to people looking for work or starting a new business or whatever is "find your value proposition, target market and sell, sell, sell." I see this all the time - people develop their narrative, build brand, and then spend the rest of their work lives selling the same thing over and over, with as little variance as possible so as to minimize effort/maximize profit.
The goal is to get - money, property, status, position, etc. The "kind of person they want to be" is the one that has enough of that stuff, or more than the next person.
And so we fight change. We fight changes to the social models that help us get what we want - or, if we're in the growing "can't access" column, we fight against that status quo with increasing tenacity and aggressive tactics.
When it's at the societal level, though, it's about more than just discomfort and "being what we want to be" - it's about sustainability.
Nobody wants to look at this picture from a systems level, though. It's too hard and too boring to weigh multiple factors, perspectives and temporal pieces all together.
Complexity makes us uncomfortable, don't you know.
