Where can you get this strong healthy desire? Where are you to get the power, to manifest your wants?

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” ~ Eddie Robinson

"When you develop yourself to the point where your belief in yourself is so strong that you know that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, your future will be unlimited." ~ Brian Tracy

“A young man asked Socrates the secret to success. Socrates told the young man


to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river. When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled his head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air. Socrates asked, 'What did you want the most when you were there?" The boy replied, "Air." Socrates said, "That is the secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it." There is no other secret. A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment and success. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great results.

It is very true that man becomes old and infirm, loses his hair and teeth and cannot even hear and see properly. Everything in his body degenerates but not his desires.

Of course, most of us would be far better off with more desire. Desire is the accelerator of life. Press on it, and you start to move; step on it, and you get places fast. On the other hand fear -- the root of caution -- is the handbrake. Pull on it and you stop moving toward what you desire; leave it on and you're stuck at a standstill. Fears and judgments about desire and desiring can make it impossible for us to be who we are, express what we want, get what we need, and let go of what gets in the way of all that.

Your happiness depends upon healthy desiring. Desire provides the opening, the motivation, the conviction, the power and the persistence -- all the things that are required for success in anything. When it's strong enough, healthy desire can open the doors to the joys of loving, and even counteract fear and aversion. Where can you get this strong healthy desire? Where are you to get the power to manifest your wants?

You might plan to get it from pain, for pain creates the desire to avoid pain. You might get it from good experiences, because they restore hope and awareness of the positive possibilities. But actually, you don't need to go anywhere or do anything to get strong desire, because you already have it. It's inside you already. You just have to learn to stop fearing and judging a healthy desire to death.

Sure, fear can be useful: there are plenty of rational reasons for hesitations and reservations in desiring the things you want. But not all our fears deserve acceptance or the Seal of Approval. The fact is, ninety percent of the difficulty you experience in getting what you want comes from irrational reservations, not from rational ones. So the good news is, by getting rid of your irrational fears and hang-ups around desiring, you can almost make it easier to get the things you want and need in life.

To liberate your desires from suppression you must clearly distinguish between healthy reservations and unhealthy hang-ups. Here's the difference: a healthy RESERVATION protects us from bad things only, whereas an unhealthy HANG-UP or HURDLE cuts us off from good things as well. Reservations smooth the way to get what we truly need, whereas hang-ups block the way. For example, a person who has healthy reservations about sex may intelligently avoid promiscuity. On the other hand, someone who is hung-up about sex may have difficulty enjoying sex even in the context of a monogamous and committed love relationship.

In our culture, guilt and misgivings about wanting -- any kind of wanting -- run deep. Even people who would never characterize themselves as "spiritual" have nevertheless been brought up with the puritanical view that desiring is a sin; and especially, of course, the physical desire. All human beings have sexual feelings, desires for touching, desires for companionship, from time to time. It happens to the best of us, and it's no reason to rush off to do penance. Yet most of us interpret those feelings as signs of weakness, impurity and sin…….almost an act of a devil.

It would be overly simplistic to suggest that all of our unhealthy-desires were based on notions of sin and purity. Good old human desire gets bad press from all sides. The spiritual camp blasts desire for being too worldly and not spiritual, maintaining that desiring binds us to the temporal. At the same time, the mainstream crowd rejects desire as too vulnerable, too disorienting and too dangerous. To me both criticisms exaggerate whatever truth they hold, making it harder for us to understand the true value and usefulness of desire in human life.

All said and done the fact is, any healthy desire is the cause of success, not just the cause of failure. The only way to retrieve desire-power is to overcome our anti-desire programming. That means beating the five under mentioned great hang-ups or in more simplistic term say, the hurdles that crush our desires.

1. The spiritual hurdle: the belief that desire is satanic, sinful or not spiritual.
Some people say "It’s better to give than to receive" so seriously that they feel uncomfortable pursuing personal goals, asking for help, getting attention, even accepting when they need it. These people, who have a classic case of the spiritual hang-up, feel guilty doing or wanting anything unless it is "for someone else." To get around this hang-up, it helps to have a little perspective on the spiritual ideal at its root. All spiritual teachings suggest that all embracing universal love (agape) is more mature than desire focused specifically in one human relationship, but the real relationship between agape and human love is not generally well-understood.

How does one learn to love universally? It is appropriate to develop that lofty ability in the only way possible: by doing our best now to love all those we know. Thus it is most important, from a spiritual perspective, that we seize the opportunities we have to love on earth. To love in human terms is far more expansive and spiritual than to fail to love at all. When you find yourself feeling sinful in your human desiring, don't simply retreat. Instead, challenge yourself to bring the best of your universal love-ability into the specific relationship before you. In only the most egocentric, lust and greed based desires will you find yourself unable to do that. Still not convinced then ask yourself this question: "Am I trying to save myself for universal love, or am I trying to avoid loving now?"

2. The anti-vulnerability hurdle: the belief that desire is too emotionally dangerous and risky.
Sure, desire makes you feel vulnerable and pursuing your desires is a risky business. Fear of vulnerability also holds people back from fulfilling activities of all kinds, like learning a new skill, trying out for a place on a team or a seat in a musical group, or applying for a better job. But does that make desire a bigger risk than not desiring? When it comes to specific opportunities or relationships, it is foolish to gamble on a sure loser. Yet it's equally certain that the only sure way to fail is never to try. People who live life to the fullest know that eliminating the vulnerability eliminates the best of all that life has to offer. And so do you! Just take one minute to imagine life without vulnerability. You can feel it: Vulnerability is what makes life lively. Life without vulnerability is life without feeling. Willingness to be vulnerable shows strength, not weakness. Willingness to take risk needs courage, for a healthy desire has its own share of risks associated with it.

With that in mind, when you find yourself feeling vulnerable, and you're tempted to bail out, ask yourself these soul-searching questions: "If I cut this desire off, am I avoiding failure, or am I avoiding success?" or "If I cut this desire off, am I refusing to be weak, or am I refusing to be strong?"

3. The loss of self hurdle: the belief that desire will cause us to lose our center, or even our very identity.
We all experience this common hurdle around a healthy desire, especially so when we seek a career away in a distant land. The fear of losing our identity…..fear of losing self. We must admit how crazy the fear of disappearance is. Real desirers live to tell about it. And they don't come out lacking anything in the existence department. In fact, super-desirers almost always seem far more solidly "selfed" than desire-avoiders. When you fear your may disappear from the cozy comfort of your house that you were experiencing all along, while seeking greener pastures in an alien territory or in the act of loving a difficult person and think that if you go one step farther your self will be annihilated, try being more realistic. Consider the fact that seriously, no known individual has ever disappeared as a result of healthy desires. Ask these two simple questions to get over this particular hurdle: "Am I struggling to survive, or am I just struggling to keep my walls up?" or "Am I trying to keep from disappearing, or from expanding?"

4. The fear of intensity hurdle: the belief that desire will spiral upward into feelings which are too strong to handle.
We don't always embrace things that are good for us, even if they make us feel great! Intensity is one of those things. We are unaccustomed to handling the force of our own intense feelings. Rather than rise to the challenge, we tone down our intensity by toning down our desiring. Appreciate the real value of intensity: The right kind of intensity -- like the intensity we feel about anything we strongly desire -- can rejuvenate a person, sometimes almost instantly. Intensity is the miracle cleanser that can open clogged passageways of the heart, mind and body. One strong gust of positive intensity, one blast of delicious feeling, can blow away a host of common diseases: boredom, insecurity, skepticism, apathy, self-pity, and alienation, just to name a few. That’s the rejuvenating power of intensity. we don't always embrace things that are good for us, even if they make us feel great! Intensity is one of those things. We are unaccustomed to handling the force of our own intense feelings. Rather than rise to the challenge, we tone down our intensity by toning down our desiring. To run from intensity is to eliminate success from your life. When you find yourself feeling a lot like this and shying away from the intensity of feeling, ask yourself: "When I limit desiring, am I avoiding insufferable intensity, or am I avoiding enlivening, uplifting, healing energy?"

5. The reluctance to trust hurdle: the belief that desire will lead to unsafe and unwise dependency. The refusal to trust has become a terrible obstacle to human fulfillment. As social animals we need and depend upon relationships for emotional health and happiness and success. Many people fear that if they place trust in others they will be disappointed, or worse, be taken advantage of, be hurt or abandoned. To avoid unhappy endings, they avoid beginning any close relationships. They trade the possibility of being left alone for the certainty of living alone! In the light of all this, it is crucial that you distinguish neurotic-hyper-dependency from healthy trust and healthy inter-dependence. So when you are feeling like loving and want to let go, but are afraid to allow yourself to trust, ask yourself: "Am I really avoiding hyper-dependency here, or am I avoiding healthy dependence and healthy trust?"

Remember, desire has a powerful positive and useful place in life. The rule, "Knock and it shall be opened," is valid everywhere. And desire alone knocks. So desire on, wholeheartedly, proud and honest about who you are. What you truly want will come. 

Therefore friends always use the positive power of healthy desires to attain a greater degree of success in your life. Anything worthwhile involves some challenges and greater efforts in order to obtain it. Never overlook the opportunities in your life just because they may seem difficult to acquire. Achieving truly great prospects lies within your ability to seize the opportunity and develop your ideas.