As an infant, we receive support for our desires from day one. We become hungry and cry. It is not long before we are fed and we learn the meaning of success. We learn to seek attention and toys to make us happy. As we grow our expanding desires move beyond the need for food and toys. We start building relationships, at first with siblings and playmates, creating a new kind of desire. The company of others and their approval becomes important. This is a desire the adults in our life can’t fill so we begin chasing the fulfillment of desires for ourselves.
Before too long we begin school. High marks on assignments become important, creating another desire for success. Competition with classmates for approval and ranking with teachers motivates some of us to study and do well. For some of us school was just a social activity, our only desire was to see our friends and get high enough marks to avoid trouble at home. A few of us found school to be a torture and our only desire was to avoid it whenever possible.
Relationships continue to develop through our young lives, eventually bringing us to a new desire that brings a whole new meaning to the term relationships. These relationships begin to define happiness or suffering in our lives and we now have a desire for better relationships. During our teen years, not only do many of us begin to desire relationships with the opposite gender, our relationship with adults becomes complicated. A desire for what is perceived as a freedom to control ones own life may develop.
As we mature, our needs evolve and our life becomes filled with expanding desires, a successful career, the newest gadget, a better car or house. Meeting the expectations of a spouse and family, our boss, even our friends begins to get in the way of our own needs. The need to be successful and have that success be recognized can sometimes be overwhelming. Desires become goals and achieved goals become badges of success. Failures become labels of shame. A desire to succeed becomes critically important for many of us. Life can seem to be consumed by the expectations we have created for ourselves and those expectations we think other people hold for us, losing all sense of wellbeing in a desire to succeed. Sometimes, we begin to question the value of our desire for success and all that it brings into our lives.
In his video, Sadhguru explains the role desire plays in our lives and the possibilities afforded us as humans whether seeking well being or a path to the ultimate.
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