Introduction
I like to think of our desires like a deck of cards, except that the number of cards is infinite and not 52. You see only one card. Once you remove the card, the next card shows up, and so on.
Two major experiences
From my high school days, I had developed a fascination for coming to America. There was only one thing on my mind – how I could come to the US.
After my visa got rejected – I looked at everyone who got the visa as the luckiest person on earth. It made my desire only stronger.
Finally, I came to the US. After about six months – I felt very suffocated in my job. I felt I was way behind my contemporaries in terms of career. My next goal was to settle down and find career opportunities to catch up on the loss I incurred focusing on my coming to the US. I focused on my career and I spent a lot of time thinking about it and working on it.
Avoiding the trap
There is a reason why I am looking back at these events. I am now having one desire coming to my mind a lot. My goal now is to have a bigger online presence. The thought is, – how I can make my current blog bigger, make it more interesting, and get more readers to come to the blog. These thoughts are slowly taking more and more mental space and also more and more time.
One of my biggest realizations – based on my extra focus on visa/career, is that this disproportionately large focus has resulted in me ignoring other aspects of my life. I did not give time to nurturing relationships, my family, and my overall growth as a complete individual.
I feel life is muti-faced. We can make our lives richer if we deliberately consider other aspects of life. Having a disciplined approach to living them is the key.
These are the reasons I want to understand why I behaved the way I did in the past and what I can now do to prevent the same pattern.
The ways we get tricked
I can see a pattern of these desires we focus to fulfill.
Infinite behind one
I can see that when I am running after fulfilling a desire – I am thinking that it is just one desire. In reality, the current desire is the only one visible like the top card of a deck. There are an infinite number of desires hidden behind that one. A desire fulfilled gives way to the next.
Lure of excitement
When we think of fulfilling a desire, our reward center gets activated. We get excited in anticipation of the reward. That feeling of excitement is very powerful and also addictive. So, we keep chasing. The longer we chase and the longer we are deprived – the longing becomes more powerful and we end up giving more time to it.
The outer edge of our accomplishments and what we already have
The mind naturally moves on from what it gets. It wants to get the next thing. I witnessed this in my life recently. I went to get my car serviced. Before Covid started, my dealer would give us a ride home if the work would take a few hours. Once they stopped giving the service, I was completely used to that. For all of my recent visits, I would normally wait or call an Uber home. Last week – my service technician told me that he can call Uber and drop me home if I wanted. I was very excited and happy and went on to wait outside for my ride to come. It suddenly struck me, – would he call me an Uber when I needed to come back to pick up my car? I was a little hesitant to ask, thinking it would look greedy. I asked anyway. He said yes!!! This event told me that my mind will always try to push the envelope.
Strategy
The question now is what can I do about my current desire?
Time-boxing
I have my human wiring which will always try to get me sucked into desires. So, my approach is that I am going to time-box it. I will think of it and work on it only during a fixed time slot. The time slot will be based on its value concerning other aspects of life. I will keep it in perspective and not let it take over my mental space.
Why am I doing this
I also want to keep reminding myself, of the reason for which I am doing this. This way the reason for this activity stays in focus. This way I will not get attached to this activity per se.
Questioning the desire when it comes
I think our desires keep growing organically, so to say. Once I liked a book by the author, I want to read his other books. I hear of a fact or interesting phenomena and I want to know more about this. It is like opening a new door which in turn shows hundreds of doors, each of which, in turn, has hundreds of them. Soon we can get lost in the labyrinthine structure of the mind and deviate from the main purpose of the journey.
Conclusion
Mind seduces us with the promise that fulfilling our current desires will bring an end to our journey of life and we will enjoy peace and happiness. Our instinct to look for reward and the concomitant excitement of feeling good to make us fall for the trap of mind. We just do not realize that we are not chasing one card; we are chasing an infinite number of cards that are hidden behind the one. The point is not to try to thwart desires – rather to understand the driver for them. If this desire needs to be fulfilled –we need to put it in perspective and have a disciple around it. The mind seems to always takes us to the edge of the boundary of our accomplishments and possessions. It always makes us look for what we do not have. It is up to us to decide how we deal with those desires. By being aware of the behavior of the mind – and consciously managing them we can spend a richer and balanced life.
