An Important Desire

The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important - John Dewey

...and the things we do to make ourselves seem important..

None is immune to it and we all channelize this desire through various actions, some by playing their speakers too loud (as my neighbor right now is doing), some by gathering 'yes' men around them, some by creating great works of art that even if not appreciated allows them to take pride in, some by waging a war. Humans are driven to harm themselves when their sense of importance is taken away from them entirely, when they cannot bear to be unimportant anymore. And yet, some harm themselves to gain importance as the only resort.

It is said to be the only desire that motivates us to do anything beyond survival and propagation. Then, isn't it important that we channelize this desire into means that bring about harmony and joy? Pleasure and well-being in the self and others? What is it that makes you feel important? Does that add beauty to life or brings about pain or indifference?

Gifts of life

A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery—as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source. - Robin Wall Kimmerer

We often marr the beautiful gifts life has to offer by our thinking. We think, what is the source of someone's kindness, someone's empathetic gesture or even an occurence that we randomly benefit from. We think, why has someone 'invested' their time (energy or money) on us and what is the ulterior motive. But we forget that nature gives out of love and trust, and that humans too are part of nature. We give and take not because we have some calculations running in our mind to benefit at a later date, but because it is the way of our very being. The overwhelming capitalistic system has conditioned us to think otherwise and in its stride after misleading stride, disconnected us from ourselves. We perish in our pride, neither being able to take nor give.

Focusing on what serves

At any given point we have a thousand thoughts that we can focus our attention to. If we choose to focus too much on the things that have not served us, we risk the important things that need our attention and energy. We risk a potential good outcome by marring it through our inattentiveness.

Conversely, if we donot make sure that we have important tasks that need our attention, we risk our very minds, as they regurgitate useless happenings from the past over and over. Thankfully, choosing to focus our attention on what serves us, is largely upto us. And so is the choice of engaging in meaningful busy-ness.