Desire is an essential emotion: without it we would not bother eating, breeding or get out of bed.   Desire occurs when the brain senses something that it craves and imagines it will bring the immediate reward of pleasure, or the cessation of pain or discomfort.  The mind then releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine, and we feel a flash of excitement and arousal.  Dopamine suggests to us a possible reward and encourages us to pursue it.

So far so good.  Then we often get our wires crossed, as we confuse the process of being rewarded with the actual pleasure of the reward.  Dopamine does not bring satisfaction, pleasure or liking; rather it just engages us in action or consumption.  For example, we read words like SALES, FREE, HEALTHY, LOW CALORIE, WIN, FASTER, DISCOUNT, SEXY and dopamine immediately kicks into action, and craving sets in.  Before we know it, we have bought or did whatever, but often we feel no better (and perhaps disappointed that we gave in). The desire triggered dopamine and hijacked our attention, until we became fixated on obtaining or repeating whatever it triggered.  We imagined that this action would bring pleasure, but sometimes it only brought regret or guilt.  We confused the desire with an improved state of being and were disappointed.

Evolution doesn’t give a damn about happiness itself, but will use the promise of happiness to keep us struggling to stay alive. And so the promise of happiness – not the direct experience of happiness – is the brain’s strategy to keep you hunting, gathering, working and wooing. We humans find it nearly impossible to distinguish the promise of reward from whatever pleasure or payoff we are seeking. The promise of reward is so powerful that we continue to pursue things that don’t make us happy, and consume things that bring us more misery than satisfaction. Because the pursuit of reward is dopamine’s main goal, it is never going to give you a “stop” signal – even when the experience does not live up to the promise.*

To manage our desire/dopamine urges we need to exercise self-control. 

We need to separate the real rewards that give our lives meaning from the false rewards that keep us distracted and addicted. We need to distinguish wanting from happiness. Learning to make this distinction may be the best we can do. *

Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org

Please freely share and widely, there are no copyright concerns.

*: Maximum Willpower: How to master the new science of self-control by Kelly McGonigah