Nothing, perhaps, requires more watchful care than our desires. What we desire most is what we work for. Although men are slow to acknowledge this, it is a fact that they are always reaching out after their preferences. Many a one may challenge this statement, for he will say: This cannot be so, for am I not spending my time in a way quite contrary to what I most desire? If, however, he will stop a moment and consider, he will be apt to find—perhaps all unrecognized—there is at work underneath some paramount desire influencing both his thinking and his acting.
Take, for example, the child at school. He may think he wishes more to be in the woods at play than to be working at his desk; but does he not really prefer to remain at his task, performing his duty, than to be indulging himself in what at the time would involve disobedience? While the child who disregards right and runs at large is certainly doing so in response to the desire which he holds as the greater.
Then, even though men have failed to recognize it, are they not always being governed mentally by their most insistent desires? How necessary, therefore, that we learn to watch them if we would bring out in our lives the results which will tend to lasting satisfaction, happiness, and peace. One who watches his desires, allowing only worthy ones to control his thinking and living, will secure a rich harvest of valuable accomplishment; while one who does not guard them is liable to lead a trifling existence, flitting mayhap from flower to flower, but at the same time gathering no honey. Without definite classification, desires are apt to be but ephemeral, changing with every fleeting fancy.
