Step 5: The Price of Giving Up On Our Desires and Vision

In many of us is a gnawing feeling of something missing, something that has never been recognized or focused on with intensity. Many of our clients in psychotherapy have shared that some of the deepest and most heartfelt spiritual desires and yearnings of their heart as children or adolescents have not come to pass yet in their lives, but that the yearnings and desires are still there. We have worked with people who have given up on their dreams and heartfelt spiritual desires which has led to some disillusionment, disappointment, and unhappiness.

Dr. Richards once worked with a middle-aged man, Don, who from an early age had desired and spiritually yearned for a loving marriage and family. He also had a heartfelt desire to live in harmony with God’s will and to serve faithfully in his religious community. When Don began working with Dr. Richards, he had been blessed with most of his heartfelt desires. He enjoyed the love and respect of his extended family and religious community, but he had never married because of his fears of possibly having an unhappy marriage and going through a divorce, which he had seen happen to his parents when he was a young boy. Don had given up on his heartfelt desire for marriage, but during treatment with Dr. Richards he realized that giving up on this dream was contributing to his unhappiness and emptiness. During treatment, Don decided to face his fears about marriage and worked through the pain he still felt about his parents’ divorce. As he did this, Don reaffirmed his heartfelt desire for marriage, and he began dating once again. Eventually, Don found a woman to love and marry, which brought greater joy and fulfillment into his life.

Some people may say that heartfelt spiritual desires and dreams are just not reasonable or feasible in today’s materialistic, hedonistic world. But our view is that we pay a high price if we neglect, minimize, or disqualify our heartfelt spiritual yearnings and desires.

What is the price we must pay for lack of true desire? What is the price for lack of a vision? The price can be floating from one important item in life to another, back and forth, trying to meet the expectations and needs of all: trying to meet every expectation, trying to accomplish every wish, and trying to do every good thing with an equivalent amount of energy and effort, and most likely feeling like a failure at all of these things.

Have you ever given up on any desire for attaining something short-term? Recall the consequences (i.e. the price) of losing your vision.