Giving up Desire

One of the great ironies of existence is that giving up a desire can satisfy as much as getting what you desire. This has two distinct aspects. 

One is the avoidance of pain by eliminating the possibility of disappointment, frustration, and so on when not getting something you want very much is replaced by simply not wanting it. 

Of course this option may still leave something to be, ahem, desired, if, as I will presume, genuine happiness consists in the satisfaction of getting the things you want very much.[1] Thus, the Buddha’s prescription for ending suffering – namely, to eliminate desire – seems too harsh, at least if taken literally. Perhaps it is a last resort for someone for whom the pain of existence overwhelms any hope of happiness. 

But note that even not wanting something could itself be the object of a desire; for example, you might sincerely desire to stop feeling the urge to bite your nails, or the craving for alcohol. Perhaps more precisely what you desire in such situations is the surcease of some consequence of the offending desire, for example, unsightly nails, broken relationships. Or if you have a deep desire that no amount of trying has enabled you to fulfil, you might reach the point of desiring that the frustration end. So even in the case of eliminating a desire, you could in fact be satisfying some meta-desire regarding that desire and so derive happiness from that.[2] 

But a second way to give up desire commends itself to me even more strongly. This is when one replaces a desire d not simply with no desire d but with a different desire e. And here again there are two aspects. Desire d might simply be too difficult or impossible to attain, and so it is simple prudence that dictates switching to a different desire. Desire e might even be a more modest version of desire d; so instead of craving to have a career as a virtuoso pianist, recognizing your limits or the odds against you, you begin to ponder a career as a music teacher and cultivate your fondness for children. 

The other way I have in mind is to replace a selfish desire with an altruistic desire. I don’t mean to denigrate selfish desires, which are simply desires for one’s own benefit; these strike me as innocent in essence and certainly something I would never imagine could be, or desire to be eradicated. Why not enjoy a good backrub when you can get it, eh? But, as with anything, self concern can go too far … even for one’s own good; a life spent on the massage table (or for that matter an eternity playing the harp in the clouds!) is not to be envied. It can also become a net burden to be forever having to cater to the potentially endless desires of oneself. And finally, of course, it does not satisfy the human ideal of caring about others as well as oneself. 

Therefore I am pleased to be able to report from personal experience that it is very satisfying indeed to be able to have one’s focus trained less on oneself and more on the needs and desires of others. For one thing, there is the relief to be expected from no longer feeling compelled to indulge oneself. I have also discovered that the less I am focusing on my own needs and desires, the more delightfully they are sometimes met. I think this is easily explained, again, by the logic of desire; for with reduced demand or expectation, the more room is left for surprise. When circumstances then do turn in your favor, it can seem almost magical … “as if by an invisible hand.” 

There are also all sorts of extraneous rewards to be reaped from helping others, from the receipt of gratitude to engaging in problem solving to the sheer interestingness of the variety of human personalities and histories and situations. But most essentially is that a desire is a desire; and so even if its object is someone else’s welfare, its satisfaction is your own.[3] Imagine how much your happiness can thereby be enhanced if you widen the scope of your caring from only yourself to others as well.[4] And, frosting on the cake, you are fully entitled to take some personal satisfaction in the success of your helping endeavors. 

How, then, does one make this switch in the focus of one’s desires? Well, after a certain point it would become self-reinforcing. But to begin with it can come about in either of two distinct ways. One is that you are fortunate enough to have your personal needs and desires taken care of. The other is that you have minimized their number or intensity. It is the latter on which I have wished to direct special attention in this essay. 

Naturally a golden mean lies in there somewhere, between having no selfish desires (or needs!) at all, and having a moderate amount and strength of them that allow for a similar[5] set of desires for the welfare and happiness of others. I do think that is the prescription for the good life.

[1] And this is how I would account for Henry Sidgwick’s “paradox of hedonism,” according to which the pursuit of pleasure or happiness must be indirect. For if pleasure or happiness is the result of getting what you want, then it is imperative that in the first instance you want things other than happiness. For example, if you did not desire to eat some ice cream, eating it could not make you happy no matter how much you wanted to be happy.

[2] And even in Buddhism it seems to be understood that one may desire to eliminate desiring … but then the final triumph is to eliminate even that desire. In this essay I won’t “go there” … if only because I myself have never experienced nirvana. I don’t mean to discount the reality or benefit of such a state, but I must plead simple ignorance about it.

[3] For me the satisfaction of a desire, no matter what its object (what it is a desire for), is threefold. (Note that I am now talking about satisfaction in the material sense of deriving some pleasure or happiness from the satisfaction of my desire in the formal sense of getting what I wanted.) I enjoy the process of solving a problem (how to get what I want), I take satisfaction in having solved a problem, and I derive happiness from getting what I wanted.

[4] This may seem like an argument for psychological egoism, according to which our basic motives are selfish; but I think not. For, as previously noted with regard to the paradox of hedonism, the direct targeting of one’s own happiness is not a good strategy for achieving it.

[5] For naturally, too much concern for others could similarly overwhelm one with burdens, indeed, even more so, in the arithmetic of the case. Not to mention, as has often been noted, that exhausting oneself in the helping of others won’t help others much either.

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