The Desires of Being Human.

Christine Stanko
Oct 2, 2022
5 min read

Updated: Oct 18, 2022

There is a fundamental part of being human. And it is quite simple, in essence.

DESIRE.

All human beings have desire. It is innately part of all of us. And it can drive us to succeed. It can drive us to manipulate. And it can drive us to feel 'insane'. Desire is hardwired, if you will, into our very core.

In fact, it could be argued that desire is the basis of what keeps humans alive. How do you define desire? The word itself IS simple. We can all generally understand desire...but there is such a thing as context and individual preferences.

"I want to have that purse"

"I need to have that car"

"I am hungry for love"

"I will set a new record"

"I don't want to feel this way ever again"

"I will prove them wrong"

Desire itself is simple to understand. And it is even more simple to FEEL! It is VISCERAL.

But did you know, we can more or less categorize desire? And to add a layer of complexity, or maybe I should say polarity - desire can be viewed on a spectrum of competing contexts.

There are 4 basic drivers of desire - the context to what we desire. They create an axis.

Belonging and Connection - we desire this big time! Ever feel alone? Crave connection? In fact with human beings being social creatures we know that without belonging and connection we are hugely impacted in our health and well being.

Independence and Autonomy - we desire the feeling of being our own separate person. We crave having a voice and an opinion. We often desire to walk to the beat of our own drum (whether we actually do it, is another topic). We know for a fact that without any independence, we feel shallow and empty, we may be codependent or even slink into a depression.

(My personal favourite descriptor of this?! Spiritual emptiness - living a performative life and being miserable about it!)

Stability and Safety - Ok! This one is a no brainer. It is literally built into the back of our brain to be scanning our external (and internal) environment for risk and danger. And this part of our brain - the amygdala to be exact - will even scan for perceived risk or danger. Sorry friends, we desire stability and safety; it helps our brain with a sense of familiarity, predictability and ultimately safety in our survival.

Mastery and Risk - Ooooh! This one is a good one! You can see this human desire right from the get go! Just imagine a toddler who is climbing a couch, risking safety to nurture a sense of mastery of moving in their own body and accomplishing the task of climbing. It is perfectly human to have a desire for mastery in something. *We don't often connect to mastery without either some risk; it could simply be leaving our comfort zone, or it could be financial investment into new training and education (giving up your sense of financial stability and safety).

You may start to see this so called polarity. You cannot always 100% meet your desire for connection AND independence at the exact same time. These two desires are contradictory. The same goes for mastery and stability, the compete with each other. Or that is to say, they compete for your time, attention and resources.

This can be a great source of our tension and frustration in life. For some of us it can actually cause what I will call decision paralysis - we want one desire met so bad, but we fear "neglecting" the other end of the desire spectrum.

We have such strong desires for both and yet find meeting these desires to be a double bind - damned if you do, damned if you don't. Just think of being in a new relationship versus one that has been a little more established. The new relationship will have your desire for connection on that far end of the axis, whereas after the relationship is established you may notice your desire shift a little more towards independence and autonomy. This is generally expected and perfectly, well human!

What is a person to do about this?!

Well, for starters, come to accept that there are competing desires. And start to take a more objective look at yourself and your life. Maybe even take a step back to look at how different stages of your life have fulfilled the competing desires. A season where you deeply met your connection and belonging desires vs a different season where you devoted yourself to fulfilling your desire for independence.

And if I am brutally honest? You start to grow your DISTRESS TOLERANCE muscle - the ability to hold the felt sense of distress/tension in your body as you action yourself towards your desired goal and outcomes. (A dose of tough love for you.)

Having competing desires does not take away your power UNLESS you give up your RESPONSIBILITY to fulfill them.

(read that again if you need).

Alright! This is it where it gets interesting! Let's take this information and transform it into an experience and maybe even some personal insights!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED!

-a paper and a pen or pencil

-an open and curious mind

-about 20-30 minutes of time to just explore and reflect

Step ONE:

- take a moment to reflect on your own description of each desire driver;

-belonging/connection

-independence/autonomy

-mastery/risk

-stability/safety

-take just a couple more minutes to think about how you have currently fulfilled some of these desires.

Step TWO:

-draw the axis as you see it above; place a dot or mark on the horizontal line where your current desire fulfilment are being met.

-here is what mine looks like for today:

Step THREE:

-take a moment to reflect on IF you are craving anything different? Is your current desire map genuinely where you want to be? Do you want more of something?

I will share a reflection from my own! I am thrilled to have my belonging desires so fulfilled. There was a time I desired so deeply, the family life and now I am living it! I would also be dishonest if I didn't admit to myself that I do crave more independence and autonomy from some of the roles in my life. I would also be dishonest with myself if I didn't admit that I strongly desire more mastery in my skills, my career, my knowledge base and my online presence - which would take some risk in my current stability to gain.

Step FOUR:

- take a moment to brainstorm ideas of how you can shift your current desires and where or how they are being met.

- OR! Take a moment to look back to a time when you craved what you have now?! Jot down how on earth you got to this point? (*Hint - there are likely skills in there that you can use again in shifting your desire goals).

And just like that, you have taken hopefully a honest and more objective look at your life and where your desires fall. Thinking back to how you got to where you are today is a great way to remember all of the skills and tools you have learned along the way. Brainstorming FACTUAL ways to work towards a new desire need, is a way to inspire and ACTION your desire.

I hope you enjoyed todays little post!

If you found this fun and helpful, or a nice little mental exercise I would love for you to share it forward!

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