Desire is not a bad word.

It is a force of attraction and a vortex.

No force in this world is good nor bad. It simply is.

Fire consumes oxygen and creates heat. It can provide light or burn down a home.

A snake is venomous and yet we can use its venom to cure disease. It deserves respect for its being and its offering, but no label of good or bad quite captures it.

The principle behind these metaphors applies to desire too. It isn’t inherently moral or immoral—it simply exists. It is baked into our nature. We can use it to create, but it can also consume us.

There is power in following our desires, to pursue our callings in life. There are also dopamine traps, addictions that masquerade as following our highest desires. It can be hard to tell the difference. This is where many spiritual traditions offer guidance—some seeing desire as a tool, others as a trap.

S.N. Goenka, a Buddhist practitioner widely recognized as the world ambassador of Vipassana meditation, teaches that desire and aversion are the forces that cause suffering in the world. The Buddha himself taught this as a foundational principle -- when we are free of desire, we reach enlightenment.

Reductionist interpretations of asceticism may seduce us to exile desire. Cast out that force. It will get in the way of enlightenment. It is the source of all suffering, after all.

And yet, if desire is baked into us, why must we exorcise this part of ourselves as though it is a disease? Perhaps instead of banishing desire like a convicted prisoner, we can live with desire. We can observe desire as it arises and falls without needing to surgically remove it.

The desire to kill desire is ultimately its own desire.

Perhaps, then, we can hold both truths. It can be both a force of light and destruction.

We can witness desire without merging with it. We can direct it from the seat of awareness, from that spiritual position in our being that is not our thoughts but the observer of our thoughts.

So next time desire arises, pause. Close your eyes. Breathe. Ask yourself, ‘Is this aligned with my calling?’ Not what you should do. Not what’s on your pros-and-cons list. Just feel. Let the answer come not from your mind, but your deeper knowing.

Learning to work with your desires is learning to harness a wildfire within. You get to choose what you burn—and how you burn it.