Catch Me If You Can, or Here I Am: Which Sounds Easier?
(Mike DePung — Post 359)
Over the years, I have observed and experienced a lot of life. I’ve seen so many wonderful qualities of people, even when they didn’t know they were displaying them.
While I’ve seen many positive things, I have seen the sorts of situations that cause sorrow, doubt, and loss of faith — along with other negative consequences. Many of these result from longings and desires that are Ego-driven.
Listen, I know we don’t go through the day analyzing each thought; however, we can be aware of the motivation of each because we can set that through decision. We choose Heart; we choose to feel positive emotions; we can and should choose those things we wish to feel each day — at the very least the ones we want to characterize our lives. When things don’t make us feel the way we want, adios to those things. So when we desire anything that makes us feel otherwise, it’s Ego.
In my novel, The Fellowship of the Heart, Paul Egan knows how to manipulate and control others. He and his co-conspirators play games with people’s lives to wield their will on the largest chunk of society they can, far beyond the bounds of their businesses. They lure and groom political candidates and office holders with promises that fulfill Ego desires, which isn’t so hard to do.
Stan Boyle, one of Paul’s engineers, agrees to engage in spying and sabotage — not some deep, murderous CIA-type plot — in order to gain prestige. People like him and the governor of Missouri (in the novel) fall prey to Ego when they haven’t chosen Heart and determined their own life. They become tantalized by Ego desires, always chasing after something bigger and better.
That is exactly how we can distinguish easily between Ego and Heart desires, even if everything else is murky or confusing. People must chase Ego-desires, and once those are obtained, something new must take their place — never a sense of true satisfaction. It’s a game of “catch me if you can.”
Because of that, the desire for more of anything, if it derives from Ego, produces tension, urgency, and grasping after a goal that makes us hectic and full of fear of loss. The objects or goals of an Ego desire for more will always seem, in the final analysis, as if they are running from us. Therefore, if we don’t scheme, manipulate, threaten, plead, become a victim or any of a thousand other responses, we will lose the object of our desire: we won’t get more.
Some people, like Eric thus far in the novel, hear their Heart and determine their own fate. They don’t depend on vague promises of bejeweled facades at some future date. They experience the joy they choose day by day. Those in fellowship with their own Heart do want more of different things, but their want is not an urgent chase after something that is eluding them. Rather, it is knowing their Purpose and Vision and realizing they would be fulfilled with other emotions. They choose how they want to feel.
They may choose to want more intimacy and picture it one way. While we may visualize a specific scenario, that scenario only helps us to feel the emotion we want to feel. That’s why living Heart Purpose and Vision is fun. Heart desires often may not take the physical form we envision, but however it shows up, we should allow it, receive it.
Ultimately, all humans desire to feel certain ways. That is the basis of desire. Ego-desires attach to the things and fret over grabbing hold of something before it gets away. Heart-desires are all around us; they are there waiting to be scooped up. They come to our door, the way Eric Lafarnge has begun to experience life in the novel. This is the law of attraction, the law of the energies, frequencies, vibrations of life. Our emotions provide the energies that attract like energy, that resonate with us, and we get that.
Remember the difference here. I am not saying one way is evil and the other good. I am saying one way is fraught with stress, urgency, and ultimate disappointment. The other is Heart. We get to choose, and many people who have not heard their own Heart are full of love and life and drive, but they are full of all the attendant negative stresses in order to feel those things. The exact same thing, situation, money, relationship, or anything can be desired by one operating by Ego and another by Heart. However, the Ego-driven one is exhausted and empty and needs more. The Heart-driven one gives thanks and evaluates the positive emotions and answers the door for more of the same.
Ego-desires have an insidious whisper: “Catch me if you can.” Heart-desires, like expected friends, show up at the door, knock, and say, “Here I am.”
Blessings in your choices.
