Knowing what makes you actually happy: True desires vs. False desires
Many spiritual teachings tell us that we need to kill our desires because “desire is what leads to suffering.”
But what I have come to understand is that desire is the way of the heart; it is the way of the feminine… Without desire, there can be no fulfillment, just like how without a valley, there can be no running water.
Desire is the root of creation. We won’t be here if there is no desire– from God to create us.
Our desires are also like “pebbles” of guidance strewn by our higher selves. Following one small desire after another leads to discovering our untapped limitless potential…
Just like how having a desire to go for a walk can lead you to meeting your life partner who supports you for building a soft life you love together… or how making art leads you to starting a youtube channel which leads you to fulfilling your life purpose as a art content creator
Our desires are ways of how the Universe sprinkles “surprise gifts” onto us…
However, what I see as where people steer away from their path of happiness is when we are actually chasing desires that are not true to us (i.e. false desires)
And unlike our true desires, pursuing our false desires only leads us to temporary happiness. They are like distractions that veer you off from what you actually want.
I know this because I spent almost my whole life chasing false desires– it began from trying to appease my parents and then impressing people on social media.
I convinced myself that I wanted to be a medical doctor because that’s what my parents valued. I wanted to be their “good girl.”
Later on, even when I knew more of what I wanted for me (i.e. entrepreneurship), I was trying to “explode” my business for Louis Vuitton bags and mansions because that was what people online seemed to value.
But during the whole time chasing for these desires, I felt a gaping hole in my chest. I felt that I was incomplete, like I could only be whole if I had achieved them… I felt like until I received my so-called “desires,” I am not enough… smart enough, magnetic enough, powerful enough. And that I cannot enjoy where I am in life.
And after I achieved certain milestones (like having a 10k month in my business), I still did not feel like I have “made it.” In fact, I felt emptier than before… The mountain-top moment quickly faded, only to be replaced by a “bigger, larger mountain” that I still have yet to climb…
It was exhausting… to be on a path of chasing for these desires. And even more disappointing when achieving the desires you thought would bring you happiness don’t actually give you that…
Which led me to discover the differences between true vs false desires.
Our true desires are desires that we actually want deep down. They spring forth to nourish us with inward peace and joy. On the flip side, false desires keep us chained down by the “need for more” like mice running on a hamster wheel.
So in this blog post I want to share with you some key points that I have learned for discerning our true desires from false desires. Learning to differentiate that is what I have found, leads you to experience satisfaction for the business/life you are building, even in the daily moments.
When your desires are true to you, you have less stress, overwhelm, and pressure
Our false desires are the ego’s way of controlling and competing.
With them, there is usually a strict timeline on when you should achieve because otherwise you would “fail” or would be “behind” compared to others. There is a hard line of what you “need to” get and when. And the ego mind constantly warns you of the repercussions of what can happen if you fail to do so.
I totally see that in the old days when I reflect back on my entrepreneurial journey– I used to have crippling shame around how fast I’m moving with my business. I believed that if I can’t make 6 figures while being in grad school, I wouldn’t be “the cool girl” whom I could be proud of. And because of it, I felt like I had a jarring speaker in my head constantly repeating thoughts of worry and despair.
And you may think, “well if I’m more successful I wouldn’t worry/stress as much.” While that is true if we are talking about the phase of needing to make ends meet vs. not, what I’ve learned is that the mental chattering will not stop (especially if you got to the “success” through worry/stress).
The ego mind will lead you to thinking that the worry/stress is the reason why you were successful. And that’s how the ego makes us become forever victim to the grip of suffering.
On the other hand, when your desires are true to you, you have a firmer conviction that the desires are already yours. And this doesn’t come from “I need to believe that they are mine so that I can manifest it.”
Rather, it’s because you see that the desire is just an outward manifestation of what you already have within. Your desires can’t add to anything you don’t have already. And because you see reality as such, you move with more ease, less frustration, and worry.
2. When your desires are true to you, you are free to be yourself
With false desires, there is usually a fear that you may do the “wrong” thing to get what you want. There is a constant mistrust of how you do things and how you prefer to do things.
In business, this can look like a desire to receive thousands of comments in your social media posts that you become afraid of speaking the “wrong” thing and upsetting people. It can also look like a desire to be like a “higher level” entrepreneur you look up to so much that you begin copying them and lose the uniqueness of yours.
And it’s not that these desires are necessarily bad. Most of the time, we desire them because there is something to learn from them. But when it comes to our false desires, we pursue them at the expense of losing ourselves… That means we no longer trust the path.
Which is why with false desires, there is a way of superficiality and force when it comes to pursuing what you want. It feels like you have to “fix yourself” or “get there faster” in order to get to where you desire.
On the other hand, with your true desires, your natural way is the most perfect way.
How you naturally do things is the way to your most delicious desire, period. The path to receiving what you want is already embedded in who you are and have always been.
This is what I’m currently learning in my business myself: that I don’t have to do something I don’t want in order to get what I want (e.g. clients). To me that is like choosing to do marketing in my own gentle, intuitive way, rather than writing content in a way that is cut-throat, hyped up and is overused in the coaching industry. It’s also trusting my own inner hunches of what I want to post about, rather than doing so because of a ten-step-formula given by someone else.
There is so much freedom, joy, and creativity that comes alive when you follow your true desires. It almost feels like you are a child again– being able to play however you like.
In a society that is constantly making you feel fomo (like you’re missing something), trusting yourself and your own inner rhythm of play is like a medicine that you’ve always wanted and needed. For at the end of the day, you being freed to show up as the way you are (in your child-like freedom) is where all the desires of your heart are leading you to.
3. Your true desires are connected to the desires of others while the false desires make you only think of yourself
The reason why it feels “harder” to pursue our false desires is because we are only thinking of how we can benefit ourselves… so much that we forget to think about others.
It’s like being a businessman who is thinking of the profit margins so much that they no longer consider customer satisfaction nor marketing with integrity.
And when we are only thinking of ourselves (of our own benefit only), it requires more willpower and force to get things to where we want. It’s like we have to plot a perfect scheme to get what we want…. With an underlying fear that it might all topple over, if we “mess up”
And the reason why pursuing our false desires feels hard is because we are working against the greater Universal current that wants to work for all of us. You can call it Spirit/ the Tao– the oneness that moves with the will of the Creator.
It is when we abide in this Universal current that things become to flow in ease. You see that you desire what you desire because it is to be of service to every involved.
You become moved by a desire that is more than just the benefit of the personal small self (i.e. what we name as me/mine).
And because of it, you feel as though life is supporting you– because you are supporting life itself.
I see this difference as I purified more of my desires after I had “ego deaths” myself. A few years back, I was more so driven by how *I* could win big in business as fast as possible that I lost my focus on delivering value to my customers/clients. And because of that, the business felt harder to run overtime because I have to put even more effort on marketing trying to acquire new customers, rather than compounding growth through the world-of-mouth sales from old customers.
And what I learned was that when we are only driven by our false desires, it doesn’t feel good in the process of pursuing them. Because we are only caring about how we can “get” from others rather than how we can “give.” In other words, we begin to feel more distant and disconnected from our hearts.
So now one of the biggest principles of how I lead in my business is: generosity. I realized that it is what my heart most desires… to build a business that prioritizes value over profit and service over strategy. And because of it, my current clients have told me that they received way more value even more than what they paid for and would not hesitate to refer to others… all thanks to me following my true desires….
4. Your true desires are usually simple…. Sometimes so simple that it can feel like you’re not aiming “big enough”
For most of us who are high-achievers (or have considered yourself as one before), you may have thought that what you desire is not valid unless it’s something monumental.
What one of my recent clients told me describes that. She said it felt like she had to “build a multimillion company” or “cure cancer” if she were to live a happy, fulfilled life.
But as we worked on her connected to her true desires (i.e. what she really desired deep down), it was that she wanted to accept herself, love herself, and be more appreciative of life she already has. Sounds simple but she experienced the biggest change in her whole being as a result of that.
And the only reason why she felt lost and empty before she came to work with me was because she thought she had to desire big things in order to be liked, valued, and admired by others. And the whole time while chasing for these false desires, she felt like it was a struggle, no matter how hard she tried.
It is when you turn to your true desires instead… that you feel like the biggest weight in the world is relieved off your chest. Because now you don’t have to “reach” and “grab” for something big all the time. Instead, life begins to feel abundant (and you begin to feel more abundant) because now you see that what you actually desire is not that far away….
And of course it doesn’t mean you have to settle for less and be content with something you don’t want. Rather, you are desiring the same thing you would desire even AFTER you have achieved those big, monumental desires. And because of it, you no longer feel a giant gap between where you are now vs where you want to be.
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As you turn to more and more of your true desires rather than false desires, you will experience more satisfaction, peace, and contentment.
You will find yourself more in awe of life– spellbound by the beauty of what you desire AND your moment-to-moment experience in the path of your desire.
And rather than “I need to achieve this in order to be…. (insert an emotion you want to experience),” you will feel already full, whole, and complete as you are.
Because after all, your desires are only leading you to experience more of YOURSELF. For nothing outside of you can add to what you haven’t already experienced within yourself.
