Desire....and Why it is Our Enemy

Tony DeLorger © 2016

What is desire? Does it get us what we want and make our lives better, or is it the cause of all our pain and unhappiness? When we desire, we are saying that we are unhappy with what we have, and we're saying that if this desire is fulfilled, then we'll be happy. But does desire make us happy, is fulfillment the cause of happiness? No, because we have many desires, and once one desire is fulfilled, our focus shifts, and the previous desire becomes entrenched in the mundane, like a step we have taken that takes us to a destination but little else. So why do we take ourselves on this journey of desire and fulfillment, when in the end, it furnishes nothing, only the internal striving for would be happiness.

So what makes us happy then? Is it the goods and shackles of our desires: the new car, the new house or job, wage rise or whatever? No, because once we have them they soon transform into the mundane, the everyday, the known and predictable physical shackles of life. We may desire a spectacular house, a palace with every convenience and luxury, and when you achieve that, how long before it becomes just a house, a thing that you sit in and rarely even notice, for once a desire is fulfilled it no longer furnishes joy, because we already have it. So we move on, seek other desires and the same cycle ensues because in the end desire does not make us happy, in fact desire is a statement of unhappiness, a thought process that says to us we cannot be happy without this or that. Yet it is untrue.

So what then makes us happy, considering all we desire in its name? Not wealth, not possessions, not circumstance can make us happy. We may strive to have a more comfortable life, have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs, but none of that makes us happy. Happiness is an acceptance of the present moment, a decision to be happy that only we can make. Happiness cannot live in the future, cannot live in the past, simply in the moment of experience, the now. Either we decide to be happy or not, now. Happiness is not dependent upon any contingency, fulfillment, outcome or whatever, it just depends on us to accept it as our expression of being, in the only legitimate experience we have, the NOW.