Fundamental Desires

Since our emotional well-being is totally dependent upon what desires we set for ourselves, the management of those desires becomes a crucial skill for maintaining and enhancing that well-being.

We can divide our desires into four main groups:

· Objective desires

· Needs

· Beliefs

· Expectations

Each desire that we hold acts as a constraint upon our emotional well-being and so firstly we require a conscious awareness of these desires.

Objective Desires

These are generally real world outcomes of a physical nature, such as acquiring possessions and material resources and achieving certain experiences. Objective desires generally relate to setting things to do and then getting them done. Very often we set desires that we cannot obtain in the moment of desiring them and so the emotional guidance system generates negative emotions because we have not obtained the real world result in that moment. The key to feeling good whilst progressing towards highly sought after desires is to set small objectives that are easy to do in the moment and incrementally take you to final fulfilment of the objective.

Needs

Whenever we create a desire that we can only fulfil through the actions and results of someone or something else then we also create a need. These needs lie at the root of most neurotic behaviour because when we cannot control the fulfilment of our desires through our own personal abilities we start to become a little bit fraught. The level of intensity of that reaction depends upon how much value we put upon the fulfilment of that need in order to feel good, or at least not to feel bad. If we have a lot of needs then we feel negative emotions most of the time because we have little or no control over the fulfilment of those desires in reality and we will receive constant negative feedback and negative emotions from our guidance system because of this.

Beliefs

In order to deal with unknown causes, a lack of knowledge or uncertain outcomes we often create or adopt beliefs. These beliefs are mental constructs that we hold onto in order to have some sense of predictability, reason or sustenance for those times when the odds seem stacked against us. Consequently they also set up desires against which we measure real world results and so as a result we must take great care over what beliefs we create and what beliefs we choose to adopt. Holding unquestioned beliefs can lead to a lot of difficulty in attempting to reconcile real world results against beliefs that have not correctly predicted or caused a desired result. The best way to deal with this is to take a scientific approach and turn beliefs into theories that can be tested. The results of these tests will give better systems of prediction and causality to live by. Theories or beliefs that cannot be conclusively tested should not be depended upon to fulfil desires. In this way we remain level headed and do not set desires that cannot be fulfilled and hence we protect our emotional well-being.

Expectations

Expectations act as constraints upon our assessment and interpretation of an event. They set up little desires as to the quality and nature of what we do or what we experience. Consequently they often set up conflicting desires that make fulfilment difficult, if not totally impossible, and can often lead to not feeling good even when an important objective desire has been fulfilled. They tend to determine whether we feel satisfied once an objective desire has been fulfilled.

We tend to absorb or evolve a lot of our expectations rather than consciously forming them. We decide on “what’s right and what’s wrong” by observing and picking up signals from the people and culture around us as well as from personal experience on what makes a satisfying result. Unlike objective desires, needs or beliefs, things that we can readily identify and change, we often don’t become aware of our expectations until they result in negative emotions triggered by our emotional guidance system due to non-fulfilment. At this point it is too late to counteract them before they occur but once recognised we can change the ‘must have’ expectations to preferences. We do this by thinking, “Although I would have preferred Factor A to have occurred it didn’t and I accept that reality. Even so, I still fulfilled my prime desire and a lot of other preferences.”

User Manual

Unfortunately, we are not born with a user manual that tells us what all the emotional warning signs are caused by. As a result, few of us know the root cause of our emotional upsets and so we spend vast quantities of time and effort reacting to our emotions and seeking relief from them. This is ineffective because without getting to the root cause we solve nothing and so the symptoms come back again and again and again. Conscious management of desires to ensure that desires set are desires that can be fulfilled brings massive relief from upset and dealing with upset. Once you do that consistently you free up time and resource to develop the capabilities that enhance your ability to fulfil greater desires.

This link will take you to part 5 in this series: fundamental growth

These links are for the preceding parts of the series:
Part 1: fundamental insights
Part 2: fundamental survival
Part 3: fundamental emotion

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