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Insights on Life February 17, 2016 1 min read

Directing Desire

One never really gets to the point in their life where all desire goes away. As my guru says "desire is life". I often hear older people say I don't have desires…

Directing Desire

One never really gets to the point in their life where all desire goes away. As my guru says “desire is life”. I often hear older people say I don’t have desires any more. I beg to defer. You do have desires. You just no longer desire what you use to desire. You have new desires. As you mature your desires, the focus of your energy, change causing you to leave old desires and create new ones.

But we are always desiring something or another. To live without desire is impossible. The goal is therefore to learn to direct desire.

One way to direct desire is to identify all your needs and wants. Needs are items that are non negotiable. Examples of needs are such as food, rent, mortgage, utilities, etc. These are not really even a desire rather more a necessity. But it is still good to list them as sometimes we categorize some wants under needs.

Wants on the other hand are desires. Are your wants under your control? It’s ok to have wants. Too many wants however lead us to have a very scattered life. Our energy gets scattered. A rewarding life is a concentrated life. To lead a more focused life keep your wants to a minimum. By doing so you will be able to direct your life in a much more focused and rewarding way.

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Dandapani

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Dandapani

Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur, former monk of ten years, and the author of The Power of Unwavering Focus. He lives in Nosara, Costa Rica, where he and his wife are building a Hindu spiritual sanctuary and botanical garden. Each week he writes one teaching to help you live a focused, purposeful life.

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