You're allowed to want it

Just don't tie your worth to the scoreboard

“desire” by Jörg Schubert, CC BY 2.0

There’s this thing I keep seeing in spiritual circles that pisses me off.

This faux-zen, “whatever happens is perfectly fine with me” vibe. A kind of performative detachment, where people act like they’ve transcended wanting anything at all.

Seriously, fuck that.

Go for what you want. Refuse to settle for scraps. And allow yourself to want it deeply, fully, with all of your soul.

It’s okay to want to win the race. Or make a ton of money. Or be with your dream lover.

Don’t apologize for it. Go all in.

Where suffering actually lives

Here’s the part people get wrong.

The problem isn’t desire. Or even caring about outcomes.

The suffering starts when we tie our self-worth to whether or not we achieve the thing.

Suddenly, our ability to feel good about ourselves becomes conditional on hitting this goal. If we don’t reach it, we start seeing ourselves as a failure. A loser. Just plain not enough.

That’s the trap. Not the desire itself, but the if-then thinking that rides along with it:

“I must win an Olympic medal to prove everyone who called me ‘fatso’ in middle school was wrong.”

“I must write a bestselling novel to show my high-school English teacher who gave me an F that I’m not an idiot.”

And sure, you can use those memories as fuel. Let them light the fire. Just don’t make them your only source of power or your sole reason for pursuing your mission.

That’s what you’re really detaching from. Not your desire, but the conditional bullshit that says you need someone to give your regrettable, not-so-funny meme a thumbs-up before you can look at yourself in the mirror again. That you need the likes, the validation, the proof that you’re not what you’ve always feared you were.

When failure felt like death

I’m not saying this is easy.

For years, I was trapped in that loop. Even the smallest failure felt catastrophic. As a kid, something as trivial as losing the spelling bee would wreck me.

I sucked at sports, which was basically social suicide in a small Texas town where everyone who mattered was a star athlete or cheerleader. I was always picked last for the team—unless it was a joke.

By senior year, I’d had enough. Tennis was the one sport I didn’t completely suck at, so I bought a ball machine and spent hours practicing alone. For once, I had a coach who believed in me. She even gave me The Inner Game of Tennis (the lessons persist to this day).

Little by little, people noticed. I went from “lost cause” to Number 1 Singles Player (ok, so there wasn’t much competition for this position, but still). I even beat a few decent players.

But when it came to the match that actually mattered—the district championship—I choked.

I humiliated myself in front of everyone. (In truth, it was just my mom and a few others in the bleachers, but it felt like the whole world.) I swung wildly, missed easy shots. That day felt like literal death.

Later, when I started doing launches for my business, I had a similar experience. On the days leading up to the launch, my stomach knotted up with anxiety, like I was waiting for a jury to decide whether I lived or died.

When the launch didn’t go as I’d hoped, I’d be slammed with crippling depression, questioning the value of my existence, and entertaining crazy thoughts like “maybe I should just delete all my social profiles and YouTube channel” (as if the whole world was tracking my every move and judging me).

What shifted it for me

I can’t say this all changed overnight. Or that I’m completely over it now.

But I’ve had a series of realizations that can best be encapsulated by this mantra from A Course in Miracles: “I am an extension of God’s love.”

When I hear this, I picture myself as a ray on the sun of All-That-Is. And I’m made out of that All-That-Isness, if that makes sense. Desire isn’t absence; it’s radiance seeking form.

And that radiance has momentum. It wants to move, to create, to express.

These creative impulses come in surges. Sometimes I’m operating at overflow, like I can barely keep up with what wants to pour through (as opposed to saving my “best” stuff for later). There’s urgency, but not the “I’m running out of time, must cement my legacy” kind. It’s more like pure excitement that can’t be contained.

And really, the best way to tap into this flow is just to start doing the thing. Pick up the racket. Throw some words on the blank page. Send a text to that special someone (but don’t overthink it).

Because the longer that creative urge stays in our head, the louder the voices of fear and uncertainty become. It also takes on increasing layers of complexity. We start to overthink everything and second-guess ourselves.

But once we take the first step, no matter how wobbly, it’s like we’re turning on the faucet and allowing that God juice to flow through us. Sure, at first the flow may be a bit janky, full of sputtering starts and stops (especially if the pipe’s rusty from disuse), but if you just keep moving, eventually it will become smoother and you’ll experience the coveted “flow state,” which really is heavenly.

Even as I’m writing these words, I’m recognizing that in this state, all the old garbage like needing to achieve this outcome to prove something or pretending you don’t really want it (essentially protecting yourself from disappointment) no longer applies. Because inadequacy and failure—all subsections of lack—only exist in separation.

But when you’re a ray on the sun or tapped into that divine faucet, you’re not separate from Source. You’re just God doing its God thing. The sun just shines. Water just flows. Trees just grow. Nothing to it.

All desires are sacred

Let’s drop the nonsense about “egoic” versus “pure” desires, “noble” versus “base.”

Every desire arises from the same source—the love you already are.

If you’re an infinite being expressing through a human form, of course you’ll want to expand. That’s what desire is: infinity trying to experience more of itself.

They can be as simple as “I want an ice cream sandwich” or as outrageous as “I want to buy every billboard in Times Square just to display pictures of my dog.”

These desires don’t come from lack. They’re the overflow of what’s already alive in you.

You’ll always be winning when you know this

When you remember that you’re already whole—and that your desires are an extension of the love that you are—everything you do gets infused with that love. You move with devotion instead of desperation.

And here’s the really cool part: you’re way more likely to achieve your desired outcome. Because everyone around you can feel that passion. It’s magnetic.

Also, the process itself becomes the source of your joy. The late-night writing session, the product launch, the rehearsal that runs past midnight—they’re no longer simply a means to an end but acts of communion in and of themselves.

And joy? Excitement? That’s the language of God. It plows through (or completely skips over) all perceived roadblocks because God knows no limits. So really, no matter how you spin it, you can’t lose.

You can feel it in the work

Watch a movie by Kubrick, Scorsese, or Tarantino. Read Melville or Nabokov. Hell, even modern writers like Stephen King.

That pure enthusiasm powering the work becomes a visible current. It ripples onto the screen, the page. It’s contagious.

You can feel when someone made something because they were gunning for an Oscar or a Pulitzer versus when they made it because they were so lit up by the process they couldn’t not make it.

One feels strained, overwrought. The other feels alive.

So yeah, want it

Want the thing. Care about the outcome. Go all in.

Just remember that you’re not auditioning for the right to exist or the ticket to self-acceptance.

Otherwise, you end up feeding the if-then monster forever. How many titles, followers, or trophies does it take before you stop feeling like a failure? How many “likes” does it take before you can finally stop hating yourself?

Only you can stop that loop—by deciding you’re enough right now. In fact, more than enough. You’re pretty freaking amazing.

There is literally no one like you. No one with your exact blend of likes, dislikes, and hot takes on this thing called life.

Once you accept this premise, then all the other stuff—the title, the trophy (or trophy wife/husband), the house in the hills—becomes an extension of that amazingness.

Operating from that truth changes everything. How you move through the world. What you create. The audacity you bring to your own life.

The detachment isn’t from your desire.

It’s from the lie that without it, you’re still that kid getting picked last.

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If this piece resonated, you might enjoy my Hero’s Journey membership program — a space for remembering together, where stories become mirrors and every conversation points you back to wholeness.

You can also experience your own personalized narrative through the Hero’s Journey Generator, a creative tool that helps you see how even your detours and delays have been guiding you all along.