“When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re awake. You’re moving toward wakefulness. Wakefulness, happiness—call it what you wish—is the state of non-delusion, where you see things not as you are but as they are, insofar as this is possible for a human being.” -Anthony DeMello, Awareness
“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 2: 10-11
The thing you think you want.
Is it a desire or a preference?
Preferences are light and malleable. You can have many of them and it won’t destroy you if your preference doesn’t happen. You go with the flow.
Desires are heavy and rigid. It’s okay to have them (a burning desire is necessary to make great art), but have as few as possible. For as the Buddha said, “desire is suffering.” You will suffer greatly for your desire until you attain it. And even then?….
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