I’ve been deeply dissecting the idea of desire lately, because I wanted to understand people's desires and my own. In particular, I'm deeply observing if such desire has a positive or negative effect on a particular person's life.
On the one hand, desire is seen as a necessary driving force of achievement. The passion, determination, and emotional drivenness to a desire collects our energy and directs our decision making to this goal, giving it the highest chance of realizing this goal.
On the other hand, it is seen as imprisonment of yourself that you cannot see anything else. Desire can cloud one’s judgment and, in some people’s view, become a prison where the want is recurring and one is convinced of no other option. That the attainment of this desire is the only key to happiness. In this way, some people see desire as an obstacle.
As my teacher enlightens, desire is not the obstacle. To not know why it is the desire, or how this desire is achieved, can be the obstacle.
Desire in itself is not the problem. But when one is consumed by such desire, it must be the opportunity to ask yourself, where does this desire come from? Is it a desire that truly comes from me? Is it a desire that comes from programmed behaviors and beliefs? Is it a reaction?
A quote said (I don’t know the source):
Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing it is not the fish they are after.
With desire, one can keep chasing all their lives, and perhaps even achieve it, again and again, only to find out what they were searching for was more than that—something they could not put a finger to, and so one keeps chasing expecting to feel fulfilled. Momentary elation can briefly feel like happiness, and that is all fine.
There must come a time, though, when we want to understand what we are really chasing. And are we going after it because it is a true desire that comes from our true selves?