My only purpose of existing is to fulfill my creator’s desires

 

 

You see our sages teach us, nothing is more powerful than desire.

 

On the other hand, they teach us that the prime cause is pleasure.

 

For pleasure (or avoidance of pain its corollary) people do everything.

 

So if this is the prime cause, how can desire being stronger than its antecedent cause.

 

The answer is simple!

 

You see, desire causes pleasure!

 

If I want something, then when I get it, I feel pleasure, even if there was no intrinsic pleasure.

 

Remarkably, then, desire is greater then pleasure, for it creates pleasure!

 

Desire is like a God!

 

Now what happens in life is so simple, yet so sad; so powerful yet so devastating, so magical yet so debased.

 

As we go through life we pick up desires – as we see television movies etc. etc. our desires intensify into new weird and bizarre things.

 

For example, in a Japanese town, girls were happy with themselves until television was introduced, suddenly they all desired to look as skinny and as pretty as the beautiful actresses.

 

Men too – particularly in our pornographied time – have desires that they should never have, nor can ever fulfill.

 

What happens, when we set up an unrealistic expectation, for that is what a desire is, for reality has nothing to do with what we want – it would be like putting in a GPS to a destination that you cannot reach and hence you will be going in this circle, like a dog chasing its tail, never satisfied, never at peace, for life cannot give you what you desire!!!

 

To a large extent this is the curse of modern society.

 

Once upon a time, people lived simple lives.

 

Their desires were so stupid, to us it seems foolish, yet the fact is, as their desires were so minimal, their standards so low – as I see clearly with the dirt poor blacks in Africa – they were happy people.

 

Shouldn’t we the west, blessed with an abundance, more than kings and queens of yesteryear had, be happy?

 

Shouldn’t we in the west feel lucky?

 

Shouldn’t we in the west feel grateful?

 

And yet depression is a western illness, ussatisfaction a western problem, for happiness is not in what you have, but if you are happy with what you have.

 

The more gadgets, the more possibility we could perhaps attain wealth, fame and all those wonderful bizarre things we see on TV, the less happy we become for even though this is subconscious, we have set up unrealistic expectations which are impossible to achieve.

 

So how do we untangle this mess?

 

The answer is so simple it is almost comical.

 

You need to realize that desiring your desires is to only achieve misery.

 

Once you realize this, you will cease to desire your desires for the only reason we do so is to achieve pleasure.

 

To change the object from a positive to a negative, ultimately is to reverse course and gain independence from the incessant desires.

 

Interestingly this applies also to spiritual desires – as the Rebbe teaches, we should be desireless.

 

Our sole desire – in fact the only thing we are guaranteed to achieve, hence receive pleasure from, is to fulfill the purpose of existence, my Creator’s desires!