Consuming desire can yield great results
In my earlier article titled “Malawi needs destiny changers” I mentioned that for any meaningful achievement to be realised by anybody, that person must embrace desire, determination, dedication and discipline—the four Ds.
By desire is not meant a casual and passing wish. It does not take effort to have a casual wish. The desire that will help you achieve tangible results is a strong longing for that which is the object of desire. When you begin to act as if your life depends on something, then you have a desire for that something, whatever it may be.
In 2010, robbers broke into my home at half past two in the morning. They must have had prior knowledge of where the items they were looking for were kept, so they targeted the main bedroom. Armed with pangas and heavy metal objects, they could not be deterred by anything. There were only two of us in the home at that time, my son and I. We knew that we needed to get away and hide, which we hastily did.
As we walked to the opposite end of the building, I realised that I had forgotten my phone in the bedroom. I desperately needed the phone to connect to the outside world and inform people that we were in a difficult situation. I literally acted as if my life and that of my son depended on the phone. I made a quick calculation and figured out that it would still take time for the robbers to break the strong burglar bars on the bedroom window. So I quietly tip-toed back to the bedroom, grabbed the phone and quickly got away. They were still breaking.
If your life depends on something, you will take calculated risks to get it. That is what desire means. It is like the man in Jesus’ parable who sold everything he had to possess a field under which was hidden treasure. If your wish does not reach those proportions, you have not begun to desire.
Tradition has it that the celebrated scientist Sir Isaac Newton, father of classical mechanics who lived a celibate life, once received a visitor in his home. He left his visitor in the sitting room to continue with his work in a home laboratory. Lunch time approached and the house servant prepared a meal for the two. The servant informed Sir Isaac about the meal, but he did not emerge from his laboratory. Having waited for a considerably long time, the visitor took his portion of the lunch and left. Later in the afternoon, Newton came out, walked to the dining table and found plates that had been used. He mumbled to himself, “So, I have already eaten….” and went back into his laboratory to continue his work.
That is the essence of desire. Newton desired so much to see his work completed, and perhaps a theory proved, that he literally forgot the world around him. He could not remember whether he had already eaten or not because his desire was so consuming.
In 1741, composer George Fredrick Handel, having been given a script by his colleague, literally locked himself up for 21 days to set the script to music. He never ventured outside his house in that entire period, depending on a hired caterer to give him meals everyday. Many times the caterer was surprised because when he brought a fresh meal he noticed that the previous one had hardly been touched. That is how consuming Handel’s desire was to complete his work. And when he finally completed it, he had created one of the finest works in classical music, Handel’s Messiah.
I do not know what the readers of this article want to achieve in life. But what I know is that they must search within themselves and see if they have a consuming desire for whatever it is they want to achieve. A desire that will nearly take up all their being because they realise that somehow their very life depends on that which they want achieved.
A book on positive thinking that I read recently states that when you seriously desire something, your mind begins to look for ways of achieving that something. Several options will be evaluated by the brain without your conscious knowledge. These options will be presented to you so that you can make a choice.
