“The more you desperately want to be rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel, regardless of how much money you actually make. The more you desperately want to be sexy and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you desperately want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become, regardless of those who surround you. The more you want to be spiritually enlightened, the more self-centered and shallow you become in trying to get there.”
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Beyond the Quote (177/365)
The more desperate you are, the more intense your feelings of lack become. Sometimes desperation comes from a lack of a need. These intense feelings are legitimate survival mechanisms designed to keep you alive. When you are desperately hungry, it implies that you would do just about anything for food. When you are desperately ill, it means that you would sacrifice almost anything for health. When you’re desperately sad, it means you would likely try anything for happiness again. But, desperation can be self-imposed from a lack of a want, too.
When you desperately want to be rich, you create an intense feeling of lack of money and would do almost anything to fulfill that lack. When you desperately want to be more sexy and desired, you create an intense feeling of ugliness and undesirability that you would do almost anything to fix. When you desperately want to be more happy and loved, you create an intense feeling of loneliness and sadness that can feel so overwhelming and crippling that you would be willing to make questionable and rash decisions. The act of becoming desperate is the act of creating a large mental gap between where you are and where you want to be—and when it’s self-imposed, it can be dangerous.
The bigger you make those gaps, the more unhappy, discontent, and upset you will be—regardless of how big those gaps actually are in reality. This, of course, can lead you to dark, depressing states of mind. Assuming whatever it is that you’re desperate over isn’t a legitimate need, the key is to close those gaps as much as possible in your mind so that your mind and your reality can find themselves in the same place. This is where true contentment and happiness can only ever be found. For, happiness isn’t so much an accumulation of things so much as it’s a lack of desire. Think about it. When you are free of desire, what’s left? Empty mind and present moment. It’s where the experience of life is found.
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One of the dangers of intense desire is that it blinds a person to their own actions. When you are desperately hungry—slowly, everything else stops mattering except for food. At first, you slowly start to forget about your thoughts on personal development and creativity. Then, you forget about your manners, your respect, your status, your position. The next thing to go is your awareness of family, friends, lovers, and acquaintances. Finally, you stop caring about your personal safety, health, and assets. This is why people who are in desperate states of mind will sometimes cross the most unimaginable lines, make awful decisions, and act in ways that sacrifice the ever important things mentioned above. Because the only thing that matters is what they’re desperately, intensely, and sometimes crazily seeking.
Again, if you are without food and you are confronting a life-or-death situation, you can see how this type of blindness makes sense. Who cares if you realize your full potential if you don’t have food? Who cares if you’re polite or respectful if you’re on the verge of starving to death? Who cares about what’s happening with anybody else in their life when you aren’t sure if you’re going to be able to live another day in yours? Who cares about personal safety and health when death from starvation is right around the corner? But, where this type of blindness doesn’t make sense is when you impose it on yourself for things that are nothing more than wants and desires for more.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t ever work for more in your life. There is a fine line between being driven and being desperate. Driven is patient; desperate is rash. Driven is direction oriented; desperate is destination oriented. Driven is content; desperate is intensely discontent. Being driven to achieve financial freedom is fine, being desperate to become rich isn’t. Being driven to look and feel your best is great, being desperate to “fix” yourself and become sexy isn’t. Being driven to develop the best relationships in your life that you can is amazing, being desperate for a relationship and/or sex isn’t. Being driven to find spiritual understanding and insight is beautiful, being desperate for enlightenment isn’t.
And it isn’t that it isn’t “okay” or “fine” or “great” or whatever because who am I to tell you what to do? It’s that, to me, it isn’t the strategy that’s going to best get you to where you actually want to be. Because is it the thing you’re really after—or the feeling of being happy/ content/ present? And who’s to say that once you get what you’re desperately seeking, you won’t then create another desperate gap again? If you aren’t willing to close your gaps now, what makes you think you’ll be willing to close them later? This whole experience is about letting your mind and your reality meet each other in the same place. Then, and only then, will you actually find what it is you’re seeking.
Read Next: 23 No Bullsh*t Mark Manson Quotes from The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
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