In the Grey

Can you feel truly blessed and grateful and still desire more for yourself?

This is a question I have broached with the ever changing inter-webs, the universe and a myriad of random people on Reddit and Quora over the years and here’s what I’ve found…

Gratitude means you appreciate what you have and what you’ve already co created with the universe.  Desire is a ‘wanting’ so to speak and we often hear about it in the spheres of great meditators and gurus - where it’s seen as something not conduscive to true contentment. And so in my quest for spiritual knowledge throughout my life I saw desire as a hindrance to enlightenment and being content. But what if they support each other?

This is a question I have broached with the ever changing interwebs, the universe and even from random people on Reddit, and Quora.

And this is what I’ve come to: 

Gratitude means you appreciate what you have and what you’ve already co created with the universe. Desire is a ‘wanting’ so to speak and we often hear about it in the spheres of great meditators and gurus - where it’s seen as something not conduscive to true contentment. And, so in my quest for spiritual knowledge throughout my life I saw desire as a hindrance to enlightenment and being content. But what if they support each other?Little did I know these two character attributes go hand in hand. But how is that possible you ask, because if we were truly content with what you have how could desire slip in even in the slightest? 

Well I’m here to tell you it’s not happening simultaneously it’s happening as in a seasoned cycle of balance.  

A constant spiritual theme that has presented itself throughout my life is balance and in logically seeking out answers to this conundrum I found my way back to balance every time, as I do with most existential subjects.  

This concept of balance helps us understand that we arent linear in any way and nor is our journey where our thoughts and desires coalesce into an abyss of multidimensional patterns.  

I have always had a hard time with black and white thinking. It’s either this or that, but we are messy and just like the universe can’t be explained in its totality neither can we because we are all part of the same magical creation and according to Tony Gaskins “To be content doesn’t mean you don’t desire more, it means you’re thankful for what you have and patient for what’s to come”.

Contentment breeds the patience that is ever needed for authentic desires to bubble up. 

And According to Preeti Singh - desire is a stepping stone for contentment:

“Contentment is a stage where desires, thoughts, expectations are aligned to find fulfilment to become happy and satisfied” (Singh, ‘Medium’, 2025), and what do we know about human nature more than any other socially acceptable fact is that humans are in constant flux with challenging themselves and pushing for the next best thing and when we can use a scale to balance our desires and step back to admire what we’ve created, in our contentment, only then can we come to a place where our authentic desires arise to light our path onto another divine endeavor. 

Contentment breeds peace and In life we bounce from peace to excitement and back again and that’s perfectly fine! We are allowed to be chameleons even though we are often told to stay in our lane and be consistent, in all things. Well I’m here to tell you it’s ok to be consistently excitable and content! Reverberating between the two. The only reason we are prodded to stay consistent by social standards it to uphold the status quo that keeps the capitlaisitc wheel ever producing more but that’s for another blog post.  Back to the subject at hand… 

Contentment truly breeds another cycle of the beautiful journey because as we know nothing in life is truly stagnate, nothing. The ever changing ebbs and flows will always be a part of the equation and the more I can get behind this thought process the easier it will be for me to be content with how desire and contentment work together.  

Here is a beautiful sentiment written by Preeti Singh.  

“Times change, and so do ideas and thoughts of the generational differences in things enjoyed, appreciated, and not appreciated” (Singh, ‘Medium, 2025). So let your desire be free and fluid and know when to scale it back with gratitude - Remembering that your contentment will come in light of this balance. 

Summary - Desire comes forth through contentment in life because being content can help us practice patience, and in the throws of patience and getting in the gap there in lies our intuitive desire. 

If you’d like to understand what I mean about getting in the gap there is another blog post just about this! A quick read - All in alignment and If you’ve enjoyed this post please subscribe and check out our community of seekers!