How Desire Gets In The Way of What We Want

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

-Oscar Wilde

Success and achievement serve as proxies that we use to guide us in what we choose to pursue in life. We are conditioned at a young age that we must relentlessly aspire to be something and to accomplish a goal. After all, if we do not put everything that we got into acquiring what we want: how will we get it? This logic is flawed, however, as desiring something is like chasing a cat: it runs away from you. Just because we want something and put a large amount of effort into attaining it, does not guarantee success. Desire and honest work are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. This elusiveness is frustrating and leads to unnecessary suffering, so how do we avoid it?

Desire is a natural human tendency. We want the new promising job, the exciting new partner, or the latest fickle automobile. In itself, there is nothing wrong with desire; we want something and thus we pursue it in what can be a rewarding journey. Where desire becomes detrimental to our lives is when it makes us dissatisfied and caught up in a cycle of chasing something that never seems to materialize. It is only when we step back from this object of desire and see it for what it is- simply another thing or goal- that we are able to get it, or lose interest in it entirely. It is an idea that Robert Ringer puts in his book Winning Through Intimidation as the “Boy-Girl-Theory”, which states: Everyone wants what they can’t have, and does not want what they can have. In a sick twist of fate, wanting something makes it harder to obtain, as if we are putting some sort of physical or mental barrier between it and ourselves. Just as there is a difference between lust and love, there lies a difference between desire and healthy pursuit. When we desire something it is as if we feel unworthy of obtaining the object of want, and thus we fruitlessly try everything in the book to own it. Then there is the healthy pursuit: there is an object of want but we sense the road to this reward is full of twists and will require planning and dedication. Where the difference matters between the two is that when we are willing to put in the work, the lust for the goal turns into love. In juxtaposition, desire is the get-rich-quick scheme and healthy pursuit is the college degree, apprenticeship, or self-teaching that lands us the job we wanted and willingly put in the required work.

We see in cases of unrequited love the insidious nature of desire. We’ve all witnessed the following scenario: one person loves the other more than they are loved back, thus creating this dynamic of “not wanting what we can have” alluded to earlier. When we find ourselves in this situation, it is best to pump the brakes on the relationship and to examine it from the outside. This is where we ask ourselves: “Am I putting more into this than they are?” We soon find out that once we create distance between ourselves and this other person, they begin to realize maybe we won’t always be around in their lives like they previously thought- turning the tables on desire’s clutches. The texts stop coming and the responsiveness lessens; we no longer become something they can have and this increases their desire for us. The same thing occurs with other objects of desire; we stop wanting the job and suddenly we are called in for an interview; we stop wanting the new car and suddenly a great deal on a better one shows up on happenstance. Just as what is common is of little value, what we already own or can own loses its value. If we never have to work to earn our money, our perceived value of it would be close to nothing when compared to the money(of same value) that we worked for. Desire warps our perception of the thing we can’t have or are yet to have, making it appear more important and valuable than it really is. Once we get what we want, the spell is over and we no longer see these qualities and the search for a new thing to chase begins. To end the cycle, we must come to terms with the idea that there is always the “bigger better deal” in the world and that we can’t always get what we want. It is better to limit our desires than attempting to satiate their every need.

Desire in itself is not a bad thing. We should want something better for ourselves and to achieve great things, but when this desire creates unneeded suffering and struggle, it is time that we see it as something that is not helping, but harming our vision of a good life. This does not mean we avoid the hard work necessary to gain a skill and stop putting in the effort where needed, but that we stop becoming outcome dependent. When we come to the realization that we are only in control of your own action, and not in the unfolding events of the outside world, the luster of desire simply becomes another detail of life that may or may not be worth pursuit. After we drop the desire to want anything, getting what you want and not having it become one in the same.