What do you truly desire? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that question? Do you take time to sit with the idea and contemplate what it actually means? Most probably have a vague sense of what they desire in life, but merely having a vague sense doesn’t allow you to aim for those desires with clarity. Often, what we think we desire isn’t what we truly desire because we regulate the idea to a surface-level concept. This is why today we will discuss how to find what you truly desire: inner peace, joy, and love.
I’m going to be upfront and get it out of the way, then work through the idea as we go. What you desire is not to have more money. It isn’t to live in a mansion or to drive an expensive car.
Your desire isn’t to travel the world or live life as you want to live it without being encumbered by all the seemingly mind-numbing things taking up space in your mind. You don’t desire to be a millionaire, a business magnet, a professional athlete, or someone famous. Maybe you think it’s to never have to work again or to be in that relationship that makes you feel like life is worth living.
Before we go any further, I want to ensure you understand what I’m saying. I’m not saying these things are wrong, or that you shouldn’t pursue them. No part of this is meant to condemn somebody wanting to achieve any of the items on this short list of what might be a never-ending list.
Initially, you might look at this list, or the one you’ve built up, and say I’m crazy. Of course, you want all of these things, and why shouldn’t you? After all, if they’re not wrong, as previously mentioned, then what’s the point of this argument?
Simply this, the list I laid out, the one you’ve created in your head, written down in a journal, or strive to attain in life, is primarily surface-level.
Meaning that it’s a materialistic approach to solving a deeper problem. This includes relationships as well.
It’s the idea that you must have something “out there” to solve an issue “in here.”
However, external gratification doesn’t solve inner longing.
What You Truly Desire Doesn’t Exist Outside of You
The problem is that most people think it does. They are searching for the next best thing, but their search is mostly outward-facing.
How do I know?
Because that’s how I lived for the longest time.
I wanted a mansion and an expensive car. Who doesn’t want the freedom to travel whenever and wherever they like? To live where you want, to do and be who you want, and have the freedom that money can potentially provide?
However, those things don’t bring true fulfillment.
If you want proof, just think of the last purchase you made that you were excited about. How long did the excitement last before you felt you needed more or something else to satiate the inner longing?
It doesn’t mean you aren’t grateful for it or that you now despise it, but could you honestly lie down on your deathbed today and say you are completely satisfied with your life because of that item?
The longer you have or own that object or are in that relationship or profession, the more the shine wears off. It might not be as exciting as it used to be.
You might liken it to a rose in a vase. When you first put the rose in the vase, it’s beautiful, fragrant, bright, soft, subtle, entrancing, and majestic.
Does it stay that way?
No.
It can’t.
Its beauty fades, its fragrance recedes, and its brightness becomes dull. Instead of entrancing and majestic, it starts to wither and harden. The softness is no longer there. It becomes brittle.
Everything, absolutely everything, follows this route.
Mansions begin to crumble and slowly rot, cars break down and rust, and relationships can experience distance and discord. Even one’s own body begins to fade. We call it getting old or aging.
Looking outside yourself, including your body, you’ll see that everything is impermanent.
Every physical thing.
It will all break down.
It will all pass away.
Our sun may shine for another few billion years, but one day, it too will start the decaying process to such an extent that any intelligent life on our planet will begin to notice.
Timelines don’t matter. At some point, everything comes to an end.
The only thing that doesn’t is what’s inside of you. I’m not talking about your physical body. I’m talking about what you believe to be true about you, how you view yourself in the world, and whether you choose to fulfill your desire internally or externally.
What You Truly Desire Already Exists Inside of You
The problem is that most people think it doesn’t, which is why they’re constantly searching for the next best thing.
How do I know?
Because I’ve started to experience those things inside me for myself.
We all have moments where we have this experience. Our issue is holding onto it.
My needs or desires are no longer centered around a nice house or car. I no longer have the obsessive desire to travel whenever and wherever I want, live where I want, do what I wish, or obtain the freedom that excess money can provide because it’s not an imposing force in my life like it used to be.
Don’t get me wrong—I would still like to do those things and would very much enjoy them, but I’ve come to recognize that they are merely trappings built out of a misunderstanding of what life is and what I truly desire.
I have a deeper understanding of what being fulfilled is. I don’t believe it’s a complete understanding, but the fullness of the idea grows day by day.
What I truly desire is peace, just like you.
What I truly desire is joy, just like you.
What I truly desire is love, just like you.
How do I know you desire these things, even though there’s a good chance I’ve never met you and don’t even know you?
Because we’re the same, you and I are the same.
We’re all the same. It’s built into our DNA.
We may attempt to attain these things in different ways, but at the core of everything we do, what we genuinely want and are searching for is more peace, more joy, and more love.
Many of us want more money because we think it will buy happiness. We get excited when we purchase a new car or home and feel good about ourselves when we accomplish something and are recognized by our fellow human beings.
Unfortunately, most people are never taught that searching for true peace, joy, and love doesn’t happen outside oneself. It happens inside oneself.
This is why a couple of weeks ago, I released a newsletter titled “The Only Way To Go Is In”
You will never be completely satisfied with your external seeking.
You may find a semblance of peace, joy, and love.
However, you won’t feel their fullness.
You can’t.
As soon as the environment turns sour or the issues of decay begin to arise, you have to replace those external things with new ones to feel that peace, joy, or love again.
Learning to cultivate what you truly desire from within and develop the conscious awareness to keep it in your grasp allows you to become unwavering, regardless of whatever circumstances you may face. When that happens, you are unstoppable.
You’re unstoppable because things don’t phase you like they used to. They don’t knock you out of homeostasis.
How Do You Find What You Truly Desire?
When you realize that everything you’re chasing is simply to achieve peace, joy, and love, it causes you to question why you’re chasing those things in the first place.
Sometimes, you realize that chasing a particular thing, like having an exotic or expensive car, may garner you adulation from others who are also pursuing such things, but at what cost, and what do you really get from that?
Will it genuinely provide you with the love you’re searching for, or do you still go to bed at night feeling empty because, deep down, you know that someone else’s praise isn’t love?
Having a large house doesn’t mean peace, neither does living off the grid with no one around. Can it bring you a little closer? Sure, but it’s still derived from something outside yourself and subject to change at a moment’s notice.
Why?
Because those things are impermanent.
However, your true desires don’t have to be. You can cultivate them to the point where they last for the rest of your life, regardless of the situations you may find yourself in.
Is it easy to do?
I haven’t found the on/off switch yet, so my experience has required work.
I’m sure there’s a yogi or monk or someone like that who might be able to help you turn it on instantly, but they probably wouldn’t do that as it would rob you of the experience of learning how to do it for yourself.
After all, what is life without struggle? Can you know what joy is if you’ve never experienced pain, loss, or suffering?
I’m not saying I prefer those things, but how can you know or experience absolute joy if you haven’t experienced the opposite?
Maybe there’s a utopian life where the highest expression of peace, joy, and love are known, but if they’re known, do they truly satisfy?
Without experiencing heartbreak, strife, pain, depression, sadness, anger, hate, envy, pride, arrogance, disrespect, and the list goes on, how can we know the depth of what true joy is, what true love is, or the overwhelming peace of the present moment?
I don’t know if there’s a way.
The Dalai Lama Haruki Murakami said,
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
– Haruki Murakami
This means in life, you will experience pain, but it’s your choice whether or not you allow yourself to suffer because of it.
You can choose to move through life with anger and frustration, sadness, depression, and anxiety, among a multitude of other unpleasant feelings, or you can choose to flow through it with equanimity.
With gratitude in your heart that you are still alive. You’re still breathing.
To find what you truly desire, you have to understand what it really is in the first place. Once you understand what it is, you must learn how to cultivate it daily.
Understanding What You Truly Desire Is Key
If you want a big house, fancy car, jewelry, recognition, and millions of dollars, you must ask yourself why you really want these things.
What are you searching for and think you’ll receive by attaining these items?
For example, if you want to be famous, why do you want to be famous? At the deepest level, what’s driving you to become famous?
Is it acceptance? Proving your worth?
At the root of it all, what does that mean you’re searching for?
The answer is love.
Unconditional love.
When you get down to the root of your desire, you understand that it’s really about how you feel.
Tom Bilyeu says,
“The only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself when you’re by yourself”
– Tom Bilyeu
And it’s the truth.
When you’re by yourself, do you like yourself? Are you happy, calm, and at ease? Can you look in the mirror and say I love you, mean it, and feel it?
Continuing to use external circumstances, situations, and objects to validate who you are means you are missing out on the true peace, joy, and love you could be experiencing.
If you continue to rely on everything happening outside of you, you won’t be able to develop the necessary tools needed to cultivate those feelings from within.
You’ll always feel as if you’re grasping at air because as soon as those circumstances change or those items break down and fall apart, what are you left with?
You’re left with how you genuinely feel about yourself, whether good or bad.
At that point, you can either make a change and learn how to cultivate what you truly desire from within or jump back on the hamster wheel and keep doing the same thing you’ve always done.
The question you might be asking now is…
How Do You Change?
The answer is simple: you choose to change.
That’s it.
You make a choice.
The execution, however, isn’t always that easy.
One of the first things you must do is decide you’ll be in it for the long haul. You must commit to this. If you don’t, you will give up and return to the old way of doing things.
The next step is to take time and delve into the depths of your soul. What do you truly desire?
Get honest with yourself. Be vulnerable with yourself for once. Don’t hide anything back.
If you say, “I want to find a soulmate,” that’s too superficial. “To be wealthy”… superficial.
What does a soulmate provide, or wealth, or any other number of things you think you want?
Take time to understand the truth of what this means and what you think these things provide.
Once you’ve taken those steps, the next thing you need to do is ask yourself, “What do I need to do to create this feeling within me without external validation?”
For some people, this may be a long journey. You may be at the very bottom of the valley right now, staring up at what seems to be an impossible climb to the top of the mountain.
Others may be halfway up the mountain, and others may be closing in on the summit.
Regardless of where you find yourself, the only thing you can do is begin to take the next step.
That step may be daunting, but take it anyway.
It might mean going to therapy and learning how to take control of your mental health issues.
Maybe it’s working on your physical health, starting to eat more healthily, and working out.
For some, it means dealing with the past, letting go, and learning to forgive.
This one’s for everyone: Take responsibility for where you are in life—emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Stop blaming the external and start taking control of the internal.
People and circumstances can’t steal your peace. You’re the one who gives it away.
They can’t steal your joy. You choose to hand it over.
It’s impossible for them to rob you of love. Instead, you constantly throw it away because you don’t think you deserve it.
You must take ownership of your life to find what you truly desire. There’s no other way for you to feel fulfilled. Everybody and everything will let you down at some point.
This doesn’t mean you hide yourself away or make yourself unavailable to the world. It simply means you don’t rely on the world to inform you of how you should feel about yourself.
Instead, you learn to live authentically and allow yourself to inform the world about how it should feel about you.
Once you learn to come from a place of peace, joy, and love, all those other things you’re looking for will come to you. They have to.
Why?
Because everyone wants these things, and as you change, you will begin to draw those individuals to you who can help you achieve the materialistic version of what you’ve been cultivating within. You’ll start to pull those things to you whether you plan it that way or not. It will just begin to happen.
But when it does, when the external things you’re looking for begin to show up in your life, you’re not reliant on them. You’re not a slave to them. You can then choose how to utilize them in your life, and hopefully, it’s for the greater good and not a self-serving motive.
This is how we change the world: by each one of us learning to change ourselves and then living authentically from that place.
If you want more peace, joy, and love, start creating it today.
The next time you start to feel angry about something someone did or said, choose to respond in peace, joy, and love instead.
I hope you found this newsletter helpful and insightful. If so, please share it with your friends and family.
Also, be on the lookout for a new project that will be released in the near future.
With that, I hope you have a great day.
Josiah
