Thoughts on Desire.

Thank you one and all for the tremendous feed back that I have received by e-mail, posts on Facebook, Tweets and comments on this blog following my last post “A reflection on (fairly) recent times” which discussed success, inspiration and how inspiration can be found. I’ve thought about this a great deal and I have come to a conclusion that true inspiration is generated by desire.

We can all read an inspiring book, hear and inspiring story, see an inspiring movie, listen to an inspiring speaker and be motivated into an activity. However, this motivation may be limited to a specific type of activity and perhaps will only last for a period of time. Sometimes the period of time can be extensive but my observation tells me that it’s often short-lived. It is my belief, by observation, that true inspiration is created and sustained by a single strong desire or by a multiple number of strong desires. So here are my thoughts on “Desire” but before I burden you, Dear Reader, I would ask you please to at least debate these ideas and concepts. Debate them with your loved ones, your peer group and if no one is willing have an internal debate with yourself. Most importantly for me, is that you should let me know how you feel about these ideas. So, please feel free to “Leave a Reply” in the box below and feel free to start a conversation!

Desire has a number of meanings according to my dictionary and can be used in a number of different ways according to my thesaurus. So, to make it clear lets us take the word “desire” in this context not to mean lust but rather to mean passion. Lust is at best temporary and can be harmful but to be full of passion with a craving for improvement must generate a positive thought process that engenders a high level of sustained activity in order to bring about the realization of the stated desire.

Did you notice that I just used the words “stated desire”? Most people, unfortunately, never realize a strong desire for anything let alone state their desire. However, you dear reader, are probably the exception to the general rule as I suspect that the very reason you are reading this article would suggest that at least you are interested in the concept of success and probably you have at least a wish to be successful and you may have a strong desire to become so. Should a person state their strong desire publicly they are either viewed as a fool or as heroic, dependent upon their audience. Diana and I often make heroic statements to one another which we evaluate by debating the statement. This tests the strength of desire and ultimately defines a course of action.

I’m sure that there are many different areas of desire but the three that spring to mind are financial, health and relationships. The latter category is perhaps the most complex and can be broken down into at least three sub-categories; love, respect and admiration. All of those are complex so, to keep things simple let me confine my remarks to matters financial.

Perhaps, then, the burning question is how do I find the desire? It seems to me that everybody has desire but in most cases it’s buried deep as lots of people are afraid to acknowledge it through fear of failure. The problem lies within our education and experience in life. We are literally programmed by our parents and as developing children by our schooling. It’s a fact that children hear the word “no” five times more that they hear the word “yes” from their parents! Now we can’t blame parents as usually the word “no”is used to keep you from harm or doing something silly. I do have a problem with our education system. In my opinion most of the education today that is available in the developed world is designed to make you “fit in” rather than “stand out”!

I think the question that needs to be answered is how do you unlock the desire and to take the desire forward into sustained high level activity that will transcend your life to mirror your desire. For Diana and I the biggest tool that unlocked our desires was aspiration. We used to look at people who had started with little or nothing. We would listen to their stories of achievement and applaud their success. Diana and I still have aspirations. After all, my mentor suggested to me, many years ago, that it’s a good idea to have a home for every season. Diana and I are only part way there! We used to admire the philanthropists of this world. Diana and I are nowhere near the same league as Bill and Melinda Gates but now we do have a yearly philanthropic plan. My mentor also stated, often, “If you wish to be successful, study successful people”.

In closing. Is it possible to find the way forward by aspiring to emulate people who are obviously successful? I will leave that as your debating point!

Until my next post……..Toodleloo!