It’s deceivingly difficult to figure out why you bought certain things; it’s extraordinarily hard to understand why you strive toward certain achievements. So hard that few people dare to ask. Mimetic desire draws people toward things.4 “This draw,” writes Girard scholar James Alison, “this movement … [is] mimesis. It is to psychology what gravity

We may treat the problem as something out there, a problem we can solve with ingenuity and engineering. Alternatively, we may recognize that mimetic desire is part of the human condition and do the hard work of transforming our relationships.