Desire...

...makes and breaks our world. We praise those who succeed in this life, attributing such "success" to their desire, or willpower, or drive. Life without desire seems pretty monotonous. Isn't it our nature to want things? Does that not therefore push us to new heights? And when desire and achievement finally embrace each other, is there any greater experience? Yes, desire is a wonderful thing. Of course...

...desire is often self-centered. That's right--our desires tend to revolve around us. It's what we want to make our lives something better, something extraordinary. Moreover, our desires often focus on matters that are side dishes, not the main course, of life--sexual fulfillment, victory in competition, acquisition of "stuff", etc. Naturally, we then accumulate more and more desires, which means more and more of them go unfulfilled. Unfulfilled desire leads to anger, frustration, and stress. Once we realize the world isn't catering to our whims, we just tend to get really pissed off. Suddenly, desire isn't so wonderful. Ironically, it's actually the root of so much that is undesirable about life.

So what do we do about that? Can we seriously expect to achieve a life without desire? Hardly. I wouldn't even wager that we were intended to live that way. Maybe we could simplify. Perhaps we could live our lives with only one desire. And, if possible, that desire would never go unfulfilled. We would find that our one desire is always in reach. And then, imagine if that one desire caused all the other "trivial" desires to fade to the point that they really don't impact us anymore. Now that sounds like the good life.

Of course, where would we ever find something like that?