When Desire and Will Compete

Posted on February 17, 2012 by zoeweil
Note: This is a repost from 10/19/2009. Enjoy!

I was reading an excellent essay by Eknath Easwaran in the Blue Mountain Journal, titled “Will and Desire.” He begins:

“Desire is the key to life, because desire is power. The deeper the desire, the more power it contains.”

The Upanishads say:

“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

Ah, but we are filled with such conflicting desires! And the strongest-willed among us, those who might become dedicated changemakers, leaders, visionaries, and doers, may also be those who are driven to fulfill desires that do not further a better world. What do industrial tycoons and Mahatma Gandhi have in common? Powerful wills to achieve their passionate desires.

As Easwaran’s excellent article explored, our desires are manifold and our will to manifest them a double-edged sword. He quotes the Bhagavad Gita: “The will is our only enemy; the will is our only friend.” As someone who has been accused of being strong-willed since I was a little child, I know this well. My strong will made me a challenging child to raise because I was endlessly attached to my desires and often inflexible. Yet, my strong will also became my great ally in achieving my goals and living according to my principles.

Making MOGO (most good) choices in our lives requires a strong will. Inevitably we will have conflicting desires. We may desire a certain food or product that is produced inhumanely or unsustainably. We may desire certain pleasures that have negative effects upon other species, other people, and the environment. We may also deeply desire a life of integrity and purpose and the unfolding of a peaceful, restored, and compassionate world. These desires may compete, and this is where we must harness our will.

Recognizing the range and breadth of our desires allows us to focus on those that are aligned with our values and pursue these with tenacious wills while acknowledging, but not indulging, those desires that don’t ultimately serve our greatest goals and the world we hope to create.

This is no easy task. But the very struggle can be rewarding, because when we wrestle with our desires and direct our will consciously, we create more freedom in our lives – freedom from the incessant pursuit of pleasure; freedom to create the lives we want most; freedom from advertising, peer and societal pressures; freedom to choose with wisdom and compassion.

What is your greatest desire? Your most fervent hope? Harness your will towards this end.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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On Turning 50: Letting Go of Demons & Focusing on Creating a Better World

Posted on July 20, 2011 by zoeweil

I turned 50 last week. I’m more fit than at 20, and much happier too. My life feels meaningful and purposeful, and the dominant emotion I experience when I attend to my life is gratitude. But there are still some demons that haunt me, and they don’t abate. I’ve tried to keep them at bay for decades and all my efforts simply keep them from gaining much more traction. I haven’t cast them out.

The biggest one is the “Things aren’t the way I want them to be and they should be different” demon. This is an easy demon to cast out when the thing I want to be different is something I have control over. But when it’s another person’s behavior – especially someone close to me – and I have no control, but still perseverate on their failures to be different, I create suffering: suffering for me certainly, but also suffering for them.

The next biggest demon is worry. I worry a lot. I can catastrophize in a nanosecond. I worry about so many things: family members, of course, but also whether I’ll make a connecting flight; whether I offended someone with something I said; whether we’ll hit peak oil before we have alternative clean fuels; whether we’ll have honey bees in a decade and who will pollinate if we don’t; whether so many species will disappear that a cascade of extinctions will threaten everything we know; whether the twinges I feel in my leg will turn back into debilitating sciatica. You get the picture.

Yet worrying serves no purpose at all.

It might seem that these two demons might be motivators for my changemaking work, but they aren’t. If anything they are impediments. What motivates me to devote my days to my work at the Institute for Humane Education and to creating a generation of solutionaries able to solve global challenges is vision, hope, and love — not worry and frustration that things aren’t the way I want.

In reaching the half-century mark, my goal is to practice letting go of these tenacious demons that have glommed onto me. And I know that this is no easy task. It’s going to require all my own tenacity to refuse to indulge these demons, to prevent them from continuing to forge grooves and pathways in my brain that become ever more entrenched, to divert initial worry and frustration into a new groove of acceptance.

By acceptance I do not mean that I will not seek to create change, but rather to choose where and how to influence and help so that I am more successful, joyful, effective and loving in the process.

That’s my goal for the next 50 years, and I realize that it will take discipline and daily practice to achieve it.

Wish me luck.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: gratitude, humane education, Inner Peace, joy, mindfulness, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Desire and Will

Posted on October 19, 2009 by zoeweil

I was reading an excellent essay by Eknath Easwaran in the Blue Mountain Journal, titled “Will and Desire.” He begins:

“Desire is the key to life, because desire is power. The deeper the desire, the more power it contains. The Upanishads say:

You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.

Ah, but we are filled with such conflicting desires! And the strongest-willed among us, those who might become dedicated changemakers, leaders, visionaries, and doers, may also be those who are driven to fulfill desires that do not further a better world. What do industrial tycoons and Mahatma Gandhi have in common? Powerful wills to achieve their passionate desires.

As Easwaran’s excellent article explored, our desires are manifold and our will to manifest them a double-edged sword. He quotes the Bhagavad Gita: “The will is our only enemy; the will is our only friend.” As someone who has been accused of being strong-willed since I was a little child, I know this well. My strong will made me a challenging child to raise because I was endlessly attached to my desires and often inflexible. Yet, my strong will also became my great ally in achieving my goals and living according to my principles.

Making MOGO choices in our lives requires a strong will. Inevitably we will have conflicting desires. We may desire a certain food or product that is produced inhumanely or unsustainably. We may desire certain pleasures that have negative effects upon other species, other people, and the environment. We may also deeply desire a life of integrity and purpose and the unfolding of a peaceful, restored, and compassionate world. These desires may compete, and this is where we must harness our will.

Recognizing the range and breadth of our desires allows us to focus on those that are aligned with our values and pursue these with tenacious wills while acknowledging, but not indulging, those desires that don’t ultimately serve our greatest goals and the world we hope to create.

This is no easy task. But the very struggle can be rewarding, because when we wrestle with our desires and direct our will consciously, we create more freedom in our lives – freedom from the incessant pursuit of pleasure; freedom to create the lives we want most; freedom from advertising, peer and societal pressures; freedom to choose with wisdom and compassion.

What is your greatest desire? Your most fervent hope? Harness your will towards this end.

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Filed under: Inner Peace, MOGO (Most Good), responsibility | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Desire ≠ Wisdom, Part 2

Posted on February 2, 2009 by zoeweil

For those of you who read this blog, I imagine that you are drawn to do good. While you may struggle, as I do, to make MOGO choices, you find joy in striving to live your life in alignment with your values. While you recognize that your desires sometimes compete with what you believe is wise, you seek out suggestions and support for choosing a meaningful life that contributes to a better world. And when you choose to fulfill your desires over what you think is actually best, you may suffer some guilt or remorse. Or you may be gentle with yourself, accepting your struggle and honoring all that you do choose to do wisely. Or you may remain in denial about those choices that cause undue harm and focus solely on the ones that do much good. However you deal with your “lapses” or “failures to live your values” you have embraced the journey of trying to live with integrity.

But what about those people who don’t seem to try at all? The pathological liar at work? The pedophile in your community who has damaged dozens of children? The batterer? The animal abuser? Bernie Madoff? We can dismiss such people as sociopaths, but what about all those many, many people who know what you know about the environmental challenges we face, but who choose to buy a Hummer anyway? Or who know about the terrible cruelty perpetrated on animals in factory farms, but eat meat, dairy and eggs from such farms every day? Or who realize that our world is dangerously overpopulated, but who choose to have more than two biological children? Uh oh. You see where this is heading. It’s heading right back to you and to me and to the many ways we, too, fail to make kind, restorative choices.

“But at least we try!” we might exclaim. “They’re not even trying!”

That may be true. Some truly don’t seem to try. They may not care enough. They may live in total denial. Or they may think your concerns are overblown, exaggerated. They may be kind proximally – to family, friends, associates, neighbors, pets – but simply never consider those far away whose lives are hellish because of their choices.

My job as a humane educator is, among other things, to instill reverence, respect, and a sense of responsibility among my audiences. It is to awaken care and concern, and help people to embrace the 3 Is of inquiry, introspection, and integrity so that they, like you, will learn, consider and choose what is kinder, more compassionate, and healthier for all.

I have to believe that most everyone is capable of this; that those who don’t seem to care are able to care if given the opportunity. I have to believe that if we start with children, we will prevent another generation comprised of too many apathetic, dishonest and dishonorable citizens whose desires leave no room for wisdom.

~ Zoe

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good), responsibility, values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Desire ≠ Wisdom, Part 1

Posted on January 30, 2009 by zoeweil

Last week I was back visiting the 7/8th grade class I taught for a week last November. During our humane education block in November the students had completed their individual MOGO Action Plans and together had decided to create a donation jar into which they would each put $1/week to donate to different causes each month. They had begun their individual and group plans with such enthusiasm, but their efforts have waned in the ensuing months.

“Why?” I asked.

The different reasons boiled down to this:

Desire.

Our desires often compete with what we know in our hearts to be good and right. At least for most of us. There are saints and great teachers in the world for whom this may not be true, but they are uncommon, which is why we tend to revere and try to learn from them. Did Mother Teresa have to struggle against a desire for material fortune, a big house and high-priced car, fancy clothes, or exotic perfumes? Probably not. Mother Teresa has implied that her greatest joy came from helping others. Her values, it seemed, were highly aligned with her desires.

For the rest of us, however – whether for foods that are unhealthy, unsustainable, or inhumane; or for more and more stuff that is produced in sweatshops, using toxic materials, and likely to quickly wind up in landfills; or for gossip that causes harm but entertains us – our desires often eclipse our values. Values which may well include care for the earth, other people, and animals. We are in conflict. Our desires are not fully aligned with what we know is wise.

For me, one desire that conflicts with my values is travel. I love visiting and exploring faraway places. I yearn to travel more – not for work but for pleasure. If I could justify it, I would spend a couple months each year visiting rainforests and coral reefs, glaciers and mountains, ancient villages and all the natural wonders on the earth. I don’t travel for pleasure as much as I would like, but I still do it, even though I know that each trip spews huge quantities of climate-altering gases into the atmosphere; even though that money could instead help others in desperate need.

Buddhism describes our desires as the cause of our unhappiness. This is often true. But if we can cultivate a desire to do good through right livelihood and right speech, we can meld our desires with our actions. When we want to do what is good and right, we find greater peace. To the extent that we make an effort to do the most good and the least harm, we find joy.

And when desires compete with our values, as they inevitably will, we can acknowledge them,  yet choose not to act on those that would tear our souls too deeply. And in so doing, we can cultivate our will.

I’d love to hear about your own struggles with desires that compete with your values and how you have resolved them.

~ Zoe

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good), positive choices, values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

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