One of the most exciting things about growing up is realising just how much there is for us in life. “ I want it all and I want it now”, just about sum it up.

The joy of life and of what is beautiful and of what makes us feel good is all is all there for us – and we get to choose it.

There is in all of us a desire to be filled with all of these things and to keep on being filled by them.

However, we can destroy ourselves by our desires. If we lose control of them, instead of blossoming, they wither.

If we refuse to compromise either our desires or the means of fulfilling them, we in fact compromise our freedom.

Or we can find a safer road through life; perhaps we do not try to become drunk with all that life has to offer. We can be more moderate in our appetites and negotiate our desires in order to live our life more fully.

The desire in us for life and for all that is beautiful was put in us by God. It is the dynamism in our life because it drives us on to search for something that will make us whole. But the mistake people often make in trying to fulfil their desires is that they do not go beyond the beauty they can see and hear and touch and smell and taste.

They try to fill themselves up with things that can only satisfy their physical and emotional needs; they forget about their spiritual needs and thus they never find the completeness they long for; they stop at the beauty of creation and miss the even greater beauty of the creator.

When we feel the need to have space and time to find ourselves and to know ourselves better, that is when our spiritual desires are crying out for us to satisfy them. (Dermott Donnelly & Gerard Conroy, How to survive the rest of your life, Pauline, UK)