What Your Desire Says About You
Talking about desire is one thing; living through its intensity is another. It blinds you to reason. It numbs you to everything else. You do not notice how your body responds under the spell of desire. Spell is the most accurate word, because that is exactly how it feels when you are in it. You do not grasp its effect until you see it in someone else.
Not all desires are bad, though. Some are necessary to carry you through the monotony of life: wanting a partner, wanting to do well for yourself, wanting to take care of your family, wanting to start a family of your own and give your children a better life. These are all good desires. From a spiritual standpoint, they are still something to be rid of, but all things considered, they are healthy ones.
Then there is the desire for things, and for a specific someone. When you want someone, you lose your mind a little. You lose the will to do anything else. You become fixated on that one person. Their face, their smile, their voice, their mannerisms: everything consumes your mind to the point where their absence troubles you more than it should. That's when desire turns into obsession. The same principle applies when you are deeply attached to a material thing.
You do not see the effect this desire has on you until you develop the habit of observing yourself from the outside. What you desire reveals something about you. It shows what you are attached to. And if you dig deeper, you will understand how that attachment was formed.
All attachment is born of lack. You believe you were deprived of something, so you spend the first half of your life chasing it, and once you have it, you spend the second half clinging to it. The lack you constantly feel, whether real or imagined, is what fuels the attachment. And the stronger the attachment, the more intense the desire.
Harbouring a strong desire for someone outside your relationship is a sure sign that something is missing from your romantic life. Deep down, you believe you could have done better, that you deserve better, that you are not getting enough, or that you are dissatisfied with how things have turned out.
All desire originates in attachment. All attachment originates in lack. Desire exposes the parts of your life you are not fully satisfied with, yet are not entirely aware of. You need to sit with yourself, go deep into the feeling, and resolve it piece by piece. You will not make peace with it overnight. Most resolutions take the form of acknowledging the feeling while deciding that it is time to lay down the burden and move on.
That's why contentment is considered the antidote to intense desire. Contentment asks you to accept what you have and where you are, by first acknowledging your deepest unresolved feelings.