What is Desire?

We all know that there is a difference between wanting something and needing it.  If the goal of martial arts training is to master skills, and we intend to master those skills in as an efficient way as possible, then it is important to choose the skills in which we will invest our time and energy wisely.  These should be skills that we both want and need, an equal union of our emotional and logical selves.  Within the LMA Philosophy we use the term 'Desire' to describe such a union.

Desire is important at the start of the process as we are setting out to change ourselves in some manner.  The Heath brothers describe the emotional side of ourselves as an elephant, and the logic side as an elephant-rider.  If that elephant does not want to budge, there is little the rider can do to make it.  When we want something, we have the energy, a drive to pursue it.  Think of a subject you loved in school.  You attended every class, listened attentively and completed every assignment to the best of your ability.  But what happened when you hit an significant obstacle?  Doubt creeps in and you start to question yourself ultimately asking if this is something you need.  If the answer is no, you stop.  The elephant needs a rider who knows the destination is realistic and achievable.

Conversely, there are many things we need and just cannot seem to motivate ourselves to do.  Think of all those New Year's resolutions.  You have every good intention and know it's the right think to do.  Yet you lack the momentum to start and the inertia (if not drive) to keep going.  Where's the eagerness and excitement?  If the elephant does not want to move, the rider is stuck no matter how skilled they are.

None of the above is to say you cannot get what you want, even if you don't need it.  Nor can you achieve what is needed, even if you don't want to.  Imagine how much easier it is to accomplish something we got need and want.  If you want to be an engineer and love mathematics, advanced calculus is going to be much easier to pass compared to someone who wants to be a writer or plain hates maths.  Make no illusion, master any skill will take a lot of personal time and effort.  Needing the skill means you know what the outcome looks like.  Wanting the skill means you will have the drive to work through the hurdles you will inevitably face.  Needing and wanting means you have the Desire to do the work and master the skill as efficiently as possible.

No one has ever mastered a skill they did not need and want