Willing Is Not Power, But Desire Makes Us Alive

Wanting is not power. There is a distance, sometimes infinite, between a desire and its satisfaction. For better or for worse, our mind does not rule reality. Our power is limited, our expectations fragile, the common, daily, expensive and fortunate mistake when it really makes us grow. When it is a fulcrum … and not slippery ground. No, wanting is not power.

The other day I was listening to an announcer on the radio how she celebrated a love song, compared to all the heartbreak songs. Excited hearts, in front of broken hearts. We are not who we want to be either, because our dictionary entry attempt is valid as long as it takes the needle to move to the next wish. On the other hand, there are relationships that end, while love never ends. It survives time, which does not appease it.

Desire and control

The lack of control is not pathological, it is the obsession or certain strategies that pretend to be an adaptation. Repetition gives us security, compulsion is the best food for anxiety.

Diagnostic manuals in the hands of a neophyte only lead to the over-pathologization of the population. We would all fit, more or less into some frame, just as our uncertain future can sign the horoscope. Even a stopped clock hits twice a day.

The difference between a broken heart and a whole heart is hope. Who has it lives, who does not, dies. That is why it is the last thing we shed, our last skin before becoming ghosts. Without it we are only vulnerable; For this reason, when it is cracked or shared, we are able to find intimacy with another.

We are all dependent. Capable of giving everything if they touch us in the right place. Also of becoming selfish when we feel threatened or we have the feeling that we have been left alone protecting our interests.

We separate ourselves from the victim or the executioner, trying to find elements that distinguish us. A bad childhood, ours was happy. However, social psychology tells us that under very specific conditions all or almost all of us would be capable of committing acts that we would censure right now. fear is such a powerful emotion that it can make us deny our essence even more than three times. There are cliffs that we prefer not to acknowledge. Therefore, wanting is not power.

When we talk about adolescence, we usually talk about the importance of equals, the value we place on feeling part of a group. Get that validation. However, on many occasions we forget that this motivation is still present during our lives.

In addition, we are talking about a motivation that also works in the opposite direction: we can get to criticize an idea – regardless of its content – because it is supported by a group to which we are not related. A phenomenon that occurs frequently in politics.

A distance that is difficult to gain for analysis. Weigh the guilt, the fear, the wounds not closed, the words that we keep to ourselves. There is the recess of parallel lives – and if … – when ours does not go well. The trap of judging ourselves knowing the consequences. Nobody wants to suffer, most suffer when they feel they have hurt the other.

Oblivions are not irrefutable proof of lack of interest. Our memory is capricious and sometimes it leaves words on the tip of our tongues. Our attention wears out fast. We are unable to see a monkey playing basketball when the people in the scene tell us to count.

Values ​​with true value

Honesty is perhaps the most scarce value. Because they have played it to all of us a thousand times, because we have experienced betrayals that have hurt us. Places where we have called ourselves fools for being good.

There is a set of variables that are beyond our control and that have a lot to do with our destiny. In part, for this reason, wanting is not power, there is no determinism in the final result.

Wanting is desire or longing, but the rest of the parts of the equation are also important. What resources do we have? What margin do we have? Realism separates from pessimism the moment it gives us options.

Beyond wanting is not power

Wanting is not power, necessarily. What does not take away so that, sometimes, with our desire, we are able to achieve a pygmalion effect or a self-fulfilling prophecy. That if we think that we are going to be cured, we are more faithful to the treatment that has been prescribed for us. It does not take away so that we can face the competition or try to find solutions for the problems that arise.

In this sense, the impossibility deserves the possibility. In fact, it values ​​intelligence in decision-making, our human side to overcome mistrust and bet on honesty or generosity in the face of selfishness, an easy answer when fear arises. Wanting is not power; in return, wanting is a sign of life. If hope is our last skin, desire is what makes us be.