Forgive the ostentatious title, what I'm about to talk about is nothing short of important.
All of us in this life, strive for different goals, we are all of us different, but in the same time, we all exist as part of an over-arching whole. This is why universalities work, they work because as different as I am from you, I still live in the same dimension, universe, planet, perhaps even the same state as you.
This unifying traits allow for universalities to work and the most important of these universalities is in fact the desire to be successful in that which we set out to do. Everyone wants to know that they are capable of achieving what they intend to. They want to know if they wanted something, that they can get it and it seems to me, that we are all happier when we know this is possible for us and see evidence of it in our lives.
With this model of happiness in place we see why its some important to determine, how success is achieved. Which is to say understanding the mechanics of success, and although there are multitudes of literature in this realm of knowledge, I believe we can go deeper.
In my own life, this has been a concept I am ashamed to admit, I personally have had struggles with. Generally speaking, the more ambitious you are the more you will feel out of control as you attempt to break the mold of what is possible, and I suppose the above ground reason for that is merely because if you exist within the ordinary class of people, the toolbox of methods you can use to achieve success is generic enough to yield generic results and so naturally when one attempts to use the same methods to achieve success of a greater degree, this individual runs into problems.
One such of these methods is the principle of intensity, if you want something enough and in fact need it, you will have it. This is one of the greatest lies ever told by modern colloquial philosophy. Indeed, if you need something enough it will elude you to the end of time, desperation ruins any possibility of success, why this is can be speculated on, but you'll find, that in your life, the things you have needed the most eluded you. This is why the concept of "the one that got away" is so pervasive, because it is a representation of a very widespread experience. The experience of desiring someone so much that you feel as your whole existence depends on attaining them, only to find that every step you take in that direction only repels the object of your desire further.
In my experience, the only remedy, once you have arrived at this point, is to complete make superfluous that need. For example many of us, live with conditions in our mind, that belie what would be necessary to achieve a great deal of happiness or peace, for example, most people( myself included,) have lived in such a way as to say, I have this thing and it is good, but when I get the thing I truly want, only then can I be at peace and be happy. In this way, every success that is found, is marginalized by the context of this elusive desire.
Yes I won a million dollars but, I still don't have this, so I cant really be considered a success. This orientation, is not only a recipe for boundless failure in life, but also in the attainment of this cardinal desire. It is as if this cardinal desire is acting as a massive dam, which holds in its reservoir all the energy needed to attain any level of success in your life, if you can remove the dam, success will once again be allowed to flow downstream.
Removing a dam, in any context even the literal, is a very radical move, to remove the dam is done by reducing dependence to it and then tearing it down, once this is done not only can your goal be achieved but so too can all the other goals downstream. The advantage to having the dam, is that it allows for all goals before it to be easily achieved, it is a massive tool for the generation of energy which can then be redirected anywhere you like, anywhere except the area beyond the dam's walls and although the energy generated can produce miraculous things, everything downstream suffers.
The radical idea, is to forget the chief aim entirely, what will you do, if you can never achieve the chief aim? What else is there, focus now on that thing, make progress on that ideal, this heals the areas around the chief aim, in a manner of speaking, it allows water flow to return to normal.
Once you have done this you can revisit the area of your cardinal desire, only to find things are much calmer and easier. From this point you can much easily see the desire for what it is as you can experience it and from there you can decide if you really want to let your water flow there or not. But more importantly, your water will no longer be stuck right before that area and you will once again be able to nourish the goals you want.
