The Higher Desire

My brother and I were recently discussing a very good thought we heard from Michael Knowles regarding this idea of encouraging people to follow their every desire. He talked about “lower desires” vs “higher desires” and I’ve been contemplating this concept ever since because I think it’s an important distinction. For instance, we may have a lower desire to eat a whole gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, but our higher desire tells us that it’s not good for us and will make us sick or sabotage our health goals. Our lower desire may tell us to stay in bed all day playing Candy Crush on our phone, but our higher desire urges us to get up and be productive members of society so we can make progress in life.

But the thing is, we are now being told that our lower desire is the one that should be pursued at all times…that it is our truest self, that we need not fight against it, but should actually celebrate it. In fact, if you didn’t notice, there is a whole month dedicated to this very concept. But the truth is, more often than not our desires are conflicting and it is up to us as individuals to determine which is the lower and which is the higher, then choose accordingly which desire we will follow. And though the higher desire may seem like the more difficult one to follow in the moment, the consequences that arise from continually giving into the lower desire can be severely painful in the long run, and worst of all, impossible to walk back.