What We Like, What We Hide

One analogy I use quite often in therapy is the ice cream shop.

You may know what you don't like. For example, you may know that you don't like chocolate ice cream. But that doesn't necessarily mean you know what you do like. You may still struggle to identify which flavor you would actually choose.

This uncertainty can quietly permeate other areas of life. When looking for a job: I know what I don't enjoy. When deciding where to live: I know what I won't tolerate. When thinking about relationships: I know what I don't want.

There is a certain relief in being able to rule things out. Knowing what we dislike helps us narrow down our options and protect ourselves from what doesn't feel right. But at some point, we may realize: I have become very good at saying no, but I don't know what my "yes" feels like.

Losing Access to What We Like

It is striking how easily we can lose touch with what we like.

In Existential Analysis, liking can be understood through two sources: the pleasure we experience from within, and the attractive force of value. What I find particularly intriguing is how easily we collapse liking into pleasure, gratification, or stimulation.

We may say we "like" binge eating, playing video games, scrolling on our phones, or endlessly consuming content. The object of liking can be almost anything. It can be spontaneous and unexpected, like falling in love with someone. It can also become harmful to us under certain circumstances.

And perhaps this is where some of our fear of liking begins.

Growing up, I was constantly reminded not to indulge myself in anything that might distract me from studying. The message I received, like many of my peers, was that pleasure could easily become indulgence, and indulgence could become something dangerous or detrimental.

I don't want to deny that this can sometimes be true. Some things we reach for can genuinely become harmful. But when liking becomes associated primarily with danger, criticism, or loss of control, we may begin to distance ourselves from liking itself.

We become more comfortable asking: Is this useful? Is this productive? What will I get out of it? than asking: Do I actually like this?

The Vulnerability of Liking

Liking has a revelatory power. What we like can tell us something about what attracts us, what moves us, and what matters to us. It can reveal something about who we are.

And that can feel vulnerable.

When we say, "I like this," we are also revealing a small part of ourselves to other people. Someone may quickly turn our liking into a judgment: "She likes that person? She must be superficial." "He doesn't care about school, so of course he spends all his time playing sports." "You're still into this at your age?"

These judgments may have little to do with us, but they can still make us hesitate. We may hide what we like, minimize it, or even distance ourselves from it before anyone else gets the chance to judge us.

Liking also exposes us to another temptation: once we recognize what attracts us, we may feel compelled to pursue it. More. Closer. Better. Further. Something we simply like can quickly become something we feel we need to obtain, possess, or achieve.

But liking itself is not a demand for action.

When Liking Becomes a Project

Once we know what we like, another question often appears: What should I do with it?

We may turn liking into a project. We try to become better at it, make it productive, justify the time we spend on it, or attach some external reward to it.

Sometimes the thing we like becomes a means to something else. We reach for stimulation, distraction, relief, or escape, and call it liking. Not everything we repeatedly reach for is necessarily something we deeply like.

Sometimes liking and avoidance coexist. Sometimes something genuinely brings us pleasure while also helping us avoid something we don't want to feel. And sometimes a liking that has been suppressed for too long can take on a compulsive quality. This is why liking does not need to be romanticized.

It is worth becoming curious about what happens when we turn toward something: What am I experiencing? What is drawing me? What happens in me when I am with it?

There may be no simple answer. Liking does not always need to be fully explained or understood. And it does not need to be defended.

Liking Is Not a Command

To acknowledge what I like does not mean that I have to act on it. I can be drawn to something without pursuing it at all costs. I can enjoy something without turning it into a goal. I can recognize what moves me without needing to possess it.

Liking can inform a decision without becoming the decision.

This distinction matters to us. We can listen to our liking without surrendering our agency to it. If I am doing something I genuinely enjoy, the experience itself may already contain its own reward. It does not need something extra to make it worthwhile.

Not everything we love needs to become useful. Not everything that moves us needs to lead somewhere.

Allowing Ourselves to Be Moved

To truly like something is to enter into a relationship with it—and, through that relationship, with oneself. In the experience of liking, something in us moves. We may feel an inner strength, a sense of attraction, aliveness, or simply a quiet recognition that this matters to me.

This kind of experience does not always arrive with a clear explanation. It may not tell us what to do next. It may not even point toward a particular destination. It simply tells us something about where we are drawn.

Maybe this is where liking begins: not with choosing, possessing, achieving, or proving, but with allowing something to reach us.Allowing ourselves to be moved. And then turning toward what we find there.

I am ready to be reached and moved by you.