Love this and it’s something I think about a lot. So often people achieve a goal at the expense of something else that really matters, like their family or health, and find that the cost outweighed the benefit. I think it’s important to have balanced goals, that it goals in multiple areas of life, to ensure desire and effort is appropriately balanced. I also think it’s important for goals to align with core values, and most of all, the core of who you are and how you are meant to express yourself. I think we all have a seed of potential inside of us and our job is to cultivate that seed, which has its own purpose and desires. The trouble is too often we prioritize the desire for certain outcomes over the desire for an authentic pathway, and if we’re not traveling the authentic path, we won’t find happiness. It’s cliche but life really is all about the journey and I always have to remind myself that results are more an accumulation of consistent actions rather than something to strive for in themselves.
Hey Suzanne! I completely agree with your perspective.
Achieving goals at the expense of our core values or well-being often leads to imbalance and long-term dissatisfaction. I find that the key is balancing goals across various aspects of life ensures that we nurture all parts of ourselves.
And yes, it's about cultivating our potential and enjoying the journey, not just the outcomes. Thank you for sharing your detailed thoughts! 🧡
Thank you for your your reflection. I do have a subtle critique. I don’t think it’s helpful to focus on ones desirability. Honestly, I feel very desirable. I think there are a lot of people pleasers out there that focus too much on whether they’re desirable or not. I don’t give a shit about whether I’m desirable. I feel very attractive and desirable. My challenge is to figure out how to align with my deepest desires and values, which is creating alignment between what I do best – which is connecting people and creating safe spiritual spaces to build community, and being able to support myself in this way. I want to get paid to do the thing I do best. I need to be living in Community, finding ways to invite people into that community, without compromising my own needs for silence, solitude, and spiritual inner work.
I find that it’s great to hear that you feel confident and focused on aligning with your true desires and values. Also, creating safe spiritual spaces and building a community where you can thrive while supporting yourself is a really meaningful goal.
I do think that balancing community living with your need for solitude and inner work is crucial too, how do you envision starting to build this community while maintaining your personal boundaries and well-being?
I'm new to the blog but I just wanted to register a point of disagreement. I think I'm a bit worried about how you frame "deep desires." Like they're things that exist apart from us, things within us to be found, to be aligned with.
I think this is especially clear in how the essay begins with a focus on identifying *your own* deeper desires, and then ends with some possible ways that catering to the deeper desires of *others* can be useful. On this picture, we *relate* to our own deeper desires just as we do the desires of other people. They are things to be uncovered and catered to.
But, I submit, there is already something quite wrong if we are relating to our desires in this way. In fact, I think that considering your desires in this way is one connected to the problem you begin the essay with: "Imagine achieving your biggest dream, only to realize it doesn't bring you the happiness you expected."
Namely, the issue in that case is that we are blind to our own desires. We do what we think is good, but somehow, that isn't enough. Sure, we *could* investigate ourselves, figure out what it is we really want, deep down, and cater to that -- but the problem still exists. Our desires, if we do that, are still hidden to us. We satisfy them like we do the desires of another person: they are things to be figured out and appeased so that we can be happy.
I think true self-actualization will involve making these *deeper desires* that we are unaware of our own somehow. Bringing them into us.
Hey ol, first of all... Welcome to Substack 🧡, and thank you for sharing your perspective.
I find your concern about framing "deep desires" as separate entities to be discovered and aligned with is intriguing. The idea of relating to our desires as external things, similar to how we relate to others' desires, does seem to create a disconnect.
You also raise an important point about the potential issue of being blind to our own desires. Investigating and catering to them as if they are hidden can perpetuate a sense of detachment. Now true self-actualization, as you suggest, might involve internalizing these deeper desires, making them an integral part of our self-awareness rather than treating them as external puzzles to solve.
Lastly, your nuanced view adds valuable depth to our conversation, and I appreciate your insight. It encourages a deeper exploration of how we understand and integrate our desires into our lives. Keep sharing your thoughts, ol—they greatly enrich our collective understanding, for all of us. 🙂
Thanks Sol! I appreciate your consideration and welcome 😊.
There's a great quote by Philosopher/Psychologist Jonathan Lear on this -- "Psychoanalysis is the flourisihing human activity of the rational soul taking immediate, poetic, and practical responsibility for the nonrational soul. Other names for this activity are, I think, truthfulness, rationality, freedom, and Eudaimonia." What does this consist in? Well, he says: "The central image is not of...distance, but a coming together-of voices into one"
I think Ralph Waldo Emerson sums it up nicely:
It’s not the Destination; It’s the journey.
When we reach our destination or goals, we often start looking for the next thing immediately, as the journey is more fun than the destination.
“The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination” - Dan Millman
Love this and it’s something I think about a lot. So often people achieve a goal at the expense of something else that really matters, like their family or health, and find that the cost outweighed the benefit. I think it’s important to have balanced goals, that it goals in multiple areas of life, to ensure desire and effort is appropriately balanced. I also think it’s important for goals to align with core values, and most of all, the core of who you are and how you are meant to express yourself. I think we all have a seed of potential inside of us and our job is to cultivate that seed, which has its own purpose and desires. The trouble is too often we prioritize the desire for certain outcomes over the desire for an authentic pathway, and if we’re not traveling the authentic path, we won’t find happiness. It’s cliche but life really is all about the journey and I always have to remind myself that results are more an accumulation of consistent actions rather than something to strive for in themselves.
Hey Suzanne! I completely agree with your perspective.
Achieving goals at the expense of our core values or well-being often leads to imbalance and long-term dissatisfaction. I find that the key is balancing goals across various aspects of life ensures that we nurture all parts of ourselves.
And yes, it's about cultivating our potential and enjoying the journey, not just the outcomes. Thank you for sharing your detailed thoughts! 🧡
Thank you for your your reflection. I do have a subtle critique. I don’t think it’s helpful to focus on ones desirability. Honestly, I feel very desirable. I think there are a lot of people pleasers out there that focus too much on whether they’re desirable or not. I don’t give a shit about whether I’m desirable. I feel very attractive and desirable. My challenge is to figure out how to align with my deepest desires and values, which is creating alignment between what I do best – which is connecting people and creating safe spiritual spaces to build community, and being able to support myself in this way. I want to get paid to do the thing I do best. I need to be living in Community, finding ways to invite people into that community, without compromising my own needs for silence, solitude, and spiritual inner work.
Viola! Thank you for your honest feedback. 🫶🏻
I find that it’s great to hear that you feel confident and focused on aligning with your true desires and values. Also, creating safe spiritual spaces and building a community where you can thrive while supporting yourself is a really meaningful goal.
I do think that balancing community living with your need for solitude and inner work is crucial too, how do you envision starting to build this community while maintaining your personal boundaries and well-being?
Hi Sol,
I'm new to the blog but I just wanted to register a point of disagreement. I think I'm a bit worried about how you frame "deep desires." Like they're things that exist apart from us, things within us to be found, to be aligned with.
I think this is especially clear in how the essay begins with a focus on identifying *your own* deeper desires, and then ends with some possible ways that catering to the deeper desires of *others* can be useful. On this picture, we *relate* to our own deeper desires just as we do the desires of other people. They are things to be uncovered and catered to.
But, I submit, there is already something quite wrong if we are relating to our desires in this way. In fact, I think that considering your desires in this way is one connected to the problem you begin the essay with: "Imagine achieving your biggest dream, only to realize it doesn't bring you the happiness you expected."
Namely, the issue in that case is that we are blind to our own desires. We do what we think is good, but somehow, that isn't enough. Sure, we *could* investigate ourselves, figure out what it is we really want, deep down, and cater to that -- but the problem still exists. Our desires, if we do that, are still hidden to us. We satisfy them like we do the desires of another person: they are things to be figured out and appeased so that we can be happy.
I think true self-actualization will involve making these *deeper desires* that we are unaware of our own somehow. Bringing them into us.
Hey ol, first of all... Welcome to Substack 🧡, and thank you for sharing your perspective.
I find your concern about framing "deep desires" as separate entities to be discovered and aligned with is intriguing. The idea of relating to our desires as external things, similar to how we relate to others' desires, does seem to create a disconnect.
You also raise an important point about the potential issue of being blind to our own desires. Investigating and catering to them as if they are hidden can perpetuate a sense of detachment. Now true self-actualization, as you suggest, might involve internalizing these deeper desires, making them an integral part of our self-awareness rather than treating them as external puzzles to solve.
Lastly, your nuanced view adds valuable depth to our conversation, and I appreciate your insight. It encourages a deeper exploration of how we understand and integrate our desires into our lives. Keep sharing your thoughts, ol—they greatly enrich our collective understanding, for all of us. 🙂
Cheers!
Thanks Sol! I appreciate your consideration and welcome 😊.
There's a great quote by Philosopher/Psychologist Jonathan Lear on this -- "Psychoanalysis is the flourisihing human activity of the rational soul taking immediate, poetic, and practical responsibility for the nonrational soul. Other names for this activity are, I think, truthfulness, rationality, freedom, and Eudaimonia." What does this consist in? Well, he says: "The central image is not of...distance, but a coming together-of voices into one"