How to know if your ‘desires’ are valid and should be acted upon

October 25th, 2011 by Agent Kevin Miller

Don’t you wish a stone tablet would fall from the sky and tell you what to do? Or your spouse and/or friends would all validate the desires you have or despairs you feel?

Yeah…well…probably not going to happen. So you sit through another day doubting and lacking faith in acting on anything and doing anything different. Cause how can you ever be certain on whether what you feel is really valid?

You’d like life to be more meaningful, purposeful, free, inspiring and seemingly worthwhile and fulfilling. But who wouldn’t? Sure, some people seem to have a pretty good thing going, but that’s an anomaly, and the reasonable and responsible thing to do is not rock the boat, keep your nose clean and just count your blessings. Right?

Where did that perspective come from?

• Your parents?
• The culture?
• Your spouse?
• Your friends?
• God?
• SATAN?

Seriously. Who wrote that script? If you step back and view life, how did we come up with a hypothesis that says “fit in and take no risks?”

Yet we doubt our desires and discontent because we really don’t have faith they are reasonably valid, and the world we live in, by far and large, only supports the status quo.

Of course the whole world tunes into TV and movies and sports that glorify the EXACT OPPOSITE. Noodle on that for a while as you think on your fave TV show, movies, book or sports addiction. Are any of them living safely and risk free?

Here’s a big part of the problem. People often talk about ‘pursuing your dreams’ and there is so much talk around ‘dreams’. I’d rather throw out that word and terminology, as it’s got far too much baggage. “Pursuing dreams” doesn’t have credibility because it sounds like a luxury. It’s too hard to disengage from statements like, “I dream of a European vacation” or “a home theater.”

We’re talking here about desires of the heart. True longings of worth. More weighty goals like having more time for family, doing work that will leave a legacy, living an inspired life, serving people in a worthwhile way.

Last Wednesday I had a conversation with Gary Barkalow during the Free Agent Underground Show. Gary is founder of The Noble Heart, author of “It’s your call“, global speaker and authority on discovering your calling, and the Professor of our first course at Free Agent Academy. During our show he quoted a section from Larry Crabb’s book “Inside Out” that categorized desires (or ‘longings’) between:
- Casual
- Critical
- Crucial

Listen to the show here, and also check out Gary’s upcoming ‘Noble Heart Exploration – Calling Intensive Experience’ event Dec. 1-4

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Free Agent Underground Show – “How to know if your ‘desires’ are valid and should be acted upon”

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I thought that perspective was brilliant and I’m going to ad-lib with my own take and rate some ‘desires’ of my own life in regards to financial purchases so you’ll get a good feel for the premise here:

1. Casual desire: I want a double scull, which is a rowing boat. We live by a high mountain lake that would be perfect for this. Get out on the water amidst God’s creation, get a great workout, and have my wife or a kid or a friend join me. Lots of worthy benefits. But even though it’s not totally frivolous, I can’t say it’s a necessity. More luxury.
2. Critical desire: We want help homeschooling our five and six year old boys. They are both in first grade. My wife Teri does all the homeschooling. Our 16 and 15 year olds are both Sophmores and can do most of their schooling themselves, though Teri spends much time shuttling them here and there and checking their tests and such. Our 11 year old needs more attention and is involved in a few things where she needs shuttling. Then we have a three year old and two year old who just need Mommy a lot. In between are the two boys who need more attention and it takes a lot of time and detail. It’s the hardest thing for Teri to facilitate. Freeing her from a majority of teaching their curriculum would add much more time to her busy schedule, allow her to refill her own cups and give peace in multiple areas. A tutor will be costly, but I think one of the wiser investments for our family. Not an absolute have to, but the pros far outweigh cons and I believe it’s worth the financial sacrifice.
3. Crucial desire: We need an all wheel drive or 4×4 passenger van. We have nine people in our family and our Suburban only seats eight, plus it’s 12 years old with 165,000 miles on it. We sometimes throw a kid in the back where there is no seat or seatbelt. We have a small RV, but it’s not all wheel drive, and our home is in a place where we need all wheel drive frequently for about 6-months of the year. This will be a big expense, but for our family to be safe (and legal) it’s just necessary (unless we sell a kid off or move!).

NOW…those are financial issues, just for the analogy. I can look at them and judge which ones are worth the decision making effort and the financial investment and risk.

Let’s talk about free agency now. Self-employment.

What I want you to do is view your life-values. And list them as Casual, Critical and Crucial. Things like:

• Renting vs Owning my work – you’ll spend all those years working, hoping to save some money while you build an asset for some business owner or corporation. Or, be building your own asset. To me this is like renting your vocational life to someone else, instead of owning it. Imagine renting a home for 40 years instead of owning. Nobody would say that’s wise. Yet we do it with our work…
• Time flexibility and freedom – is your family OK with the time and availability you have for them? Can you tend to their emotional and tangible needs when they need you? Are you adequately involved in their lives and fully engaged in what’s happening with them? I’ll say this, I would have a much more shallow marriage or be divorced, if I didn’t have time freedom to go deep and work through issues with my wife. We also would NOT have had seven children. Actually, I wasn’t willing to have ONE kid if I could be a full-time Dad.
• Purposeful work - does what you do 8-10 hours per day, 5-6 days per week have significant meaning and purpose for your heart and soul? Does it inspire you? Is that important? Will you be all you can be for others with your heart turned off and being fairly uninspired for the majority of your waking hours? Does that make sense? Is that a good design, even though the world accepts it? Gary Barkalow once said that “If your heart is dead, you can only give death to others.” That hit me. If I’m not inspired, how can I hope to inspire others? And if I can’t inspire others, I can’t influence them. And if I can’t influence them, how can I be a worthwhile husband or father or friend? Especially those of you who are parents. If you care to influence your kids, you have to be able to inspire them. Can you do that amidst the current circumstances of your life? I pursue inspiration like water and air because without it I’m only able to be about half the man I am for others.
• Health & Wellness – investing in yourself in the areas of nutrition, exercise, spirituality and more requires time and effort. Time and effort that most people don’t feel they have or can afford. And with the structured 8-10 hours per day, 5-6 days per week of traditional employment, there just isn’t time, especially if you have a family. So is this optional? If you give this up now, will you burden your family to care for you when bad health compiles and catches up to you at age 60 or 70? Is that OK? Again, back to my seven kids, I’m 40 and my youngest is 1. When he’s 30 and hopefully has a young family, I’ll be 70. Will I be able to help him build a home or take his kids camping? Or will he be further burdened in his life trying to take care of his feeble, old Dad? It’s what I’m doing NOW that will dictate this.

I could go on, but you get the point.

So for you with those above issues (and you can add more)…are they Casual, Critical or Crucial?

Notice I didn’t talk about being self-employed so you can golf all day and eventually buy a yacht. That’s what’s stupid about the late night infomercials that sell hope and hype but never help anyone. The goal is unworthy and we all know it.

One last perspective to contemplate. I spent a couple hours once, talking with a farmer who owned a big, organic grain farm. He shared with me that he was convicted in his life overall with this statement, “If it’s not sustainable, it will lead to sin.” You can re-paraphrase that if you like. But what in your life is not sustainable? It will lead to failure or depression or despair or poverty. Or lead to a LACK of wealth, health, joy and legacy?

In discussing a tutor for our kids, this perspective impacted Teri. She felt that if the result of her continuing in the status quo of trying to keep up the unsustainable pace…the result would be her ‘being a bad mommy.’ Now, she’d never be wholly bad, but if the kids (and I) only get half of who she could be due to the unmanageable, unsustainable life circumstances…the investment and risk to address and help it is WELL worth it.

Make your list of desires, convictions and values for life that you think might be worthy. That you feel discontent in. Rate them. Think about the long-term affect and sustainability. The ultimate result.

Share if you would in the comments below. I’ll respond to each one. And next, we’ll talk about what to do with them.