Cornelius Agrippa

Unless you are a monk I recommend making the effort to achieve your desires.

The main and consistent focus of my life is looking for and finding ways of living in the present moment as much as possible. Along the way I came up against a number of very strong obsessions that were not connected with this effort, and that were occupying most of my waking thoughts. These were (1) the need for love and a life partner and (2) sex.

If you believe yourself to be on a spiritual path, it is easy to convince yourself that you are working with transforming a lack or with overcoming desires – but this may be the coward’s way out.

Ask yourself whether the truth is that you have not yet found the courage to tackle these problems. Ask yourself whether you believe achieving what you want is too difficult, therefore you never start. Ask yourself whether the effort to achieve what you want might not be more challenging, more liberating than trying to live with frustration.

At some point I realised that, as Mr Gurdjieff put it, a roast chicken was not going to fly into my mouth. Just as anything I have ever achieved required effort, this was going to be no different. Then a friend pointed me towards some good advice, and another passed on his own techniques in the field of dating. I soaked up many ideas, some good, some that didn’t suit me, and I started applying the ones I thought were good. It was a steep learning curve, but I got there. Luckily for me, when I had it pretty well sorted, I met the love of my life.

One thing you learn along the way is that you are not who you think you are. This in itself is worth the price of the journey.

Later on I understood how to overcome unsatisfactory sexual performance too, and I have already provided some pointers to this in previous blog entries. Remarkably, the answer to this is being in the moment – and so we arrive back where we started.

Frequently I meet others who so obviously need to know what I have learned. What better time to write what I know when the steps are still fresh in my mind?