In our modern day, it's a very common thing for people to suppress their own desires in order to be more amicable to others. This is a behavior that we are conditioned into from childhood, from places like school or from the way we were raised. Like many things we learn in childhood, they tend to become outright useless once we grow up. One of the best things you can do for yourself, if you haven't already, is learn how to embrace your desires for your own sake.

The points we'll be covering today are:

• Only you can know yourself
• The cost of ignoring yourself
• Your desires are there for a reason

The fine line to freedom

Back when I struggled with owning what I wanted, I felt trapped. I always felt like there was something off. I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Once I took that first step, I found myself on a new side of freedom. It's not easy to find or easy to take the first step. But, once you go, it's all worth it.

Only you can know yourself

Before my deconversion, I followed the Christian mantra of trusting in god. This meant that I for the most part turned my brain off. I was always living my life according to my religion, and I always felt empty inside. Looking back, I can now see why.

It makes sense to anybody you say it to that only you can truly know yourself. After all, only you can hear your thoughts and know every detail of your opinions at any given moment.

We are who we are, and only we can know who that is inside and out. Yet, so many people allow others to define who they are for them.

To embrace your desires for your own sake means that you are taking responsibility to show everybody the true you. You take the responsibility of being authentic.

For many people, they are taught to suppress who they are so those who raised them can live vicariously through them. They shape their child to be who they wanted to be when they were younger.

Then when these people push back against this treatment, they get accused of being ungrateful and selfish. Thus, the conditioning begins: they start to believe that they can't be themselves if others aren't happy.

The reality is that you should push back against this type of treatment. Nobody deserves to be a caricature of somebody else, unless that's who they genuinely are.

However, 99% of the time, we are different even when we are similar. For this reason, people need to embrace these differences.

Most important of these people to embrace differences is themselves. In order for others to accept that you are different, you must first accept that you yourself are different.

The only things you can control in this world is yourself. As long as you try to control the expectations of others, you will never be able to be authentic.

Once you decide to embrace yourself and take control of your life, the only thing left to do is take the first step toward change. 

The cost of ignoring yourself

Looking back, once I finally made the jump to living authentically, it finally felt like everything was falling into place. I finally felt satisfaction, and eventually, contentment. I never realized just how little of my life I was actually experiencing.

As mentioned before, prior to my deconversion, I always felt empty in life. It felt like I was drifting from day to day.

Nothing I tried to fill the void did anything to solve the issue. From playing video games all day to exercising for fun, nothing worked.

Sure, I was able to hold myself over for a while, but until I began deconstructing my faith, I didn't really feel like I was actually alive. It also didn't help that I had limited access to other perspectives at the time.

Being isolated from other perspectives is deadly, especially when it's your own perspective that is cut out. Embracing your desires means to embrace your own perspective.

When we don't embrace our own perspective and live according to our own desires, we are allowing who we are to waste away. As the old saying goes, use it or lose it.

Our self identity become stronger as we lean into it more and more. Those who tell you not to lean into it are those with a weak identity who are trying to feel strong by assimilating you with their identity.

The cost of ignoring yourself is one that plagues us in the modern day. It creates droves of people who are nothing more than mindless sheep.

To live authentically, it is important to not only cut out the people who don't accept you, but to also not be afraid of being who you are. The people who are worth being around are those who will accept your genuine self.

Your desires are there for a reason

One of the core tenets of Christianity that was emphasized to me growing up was to differentiate the difference between god and Satan in my head. Basically, everything good was the voice of god and everything bad was Satan's temptations. At the time, I thought there was nothing wrong with it. Now, I can see just how disgusting this kind of thinking is.

Everyone wants something. You have something you want, I have something I want. Sometimes, these things are the same and sometime they are different.

Regardless of whether they are the same or not, they are there. Our desires are part of what make us who we are, and denying those desires is a one way ticket to misery.

One of the biggest hindrances people face when it comes to their desires is whether or not it's the right thing to do. They are raised in a way where they are taught that certain desires are wrong and should be avoided.

Embracing your desires means embracing what you want, even if one group disagrees with you. 

For the majority of people, their desires are nothing heinous like wanting to commit murder. The majority of people desire things that harm nobody, except potentially themselves.

So when these people are exposed to groups like religion or feminism that tell them certain desires are wrong and should be avoided, this becomes problematic. They end up living in denial of themselves for the sake of group approval.

It is never worth it to sacrifice your authentic self for the approval of the group. If sacrificing your authentic self is what is necessary for you to fit their image of what you should be, then your sacrifice is nothing noble to them.

Your 'sacrifice' is what they expect of you, and as such you get no special compensations. In the end, you sacrifice yourself for those who don't even appreciate it.

To live a life you can be proud of, you need to embrace yourself while allowing others to be. You can only control yourself; once you operate from view point, everything becomes easier.

Embrace who you are

Too many people try to live in a way that is pleasing to somebody else, rather than pleasing to themselves. They worry so much about others and their opinions that they are incapable of living their life and must instead live somebody else's idea of it.

By embracing your desires, you step closer to the one quality that allows you to become magnetic to others and content with yourself: authenticity. Without this, life becomes dull and void of color.

The first step is always hardest, but like other things worth pursuing, it's always worth the journey. The sooner you start, the better.

- Karl