Networks may be crashing, employees may be distracted, and your fingers may get cramps.  Welcome to Cyber Monday.  If you’re like me, you love the thrill of on-line shopping, the great deals, the ease of finding what you want, and the joy of having it delivered straight to your doorstep.  And the more I shop on-line, the more savvy my computer becomes at knowing how to tempt me.  My fingers seem to have a mind of their own as they click their way down the rabbit hole of material desire.

Then the guilt begins.  I wake from my Nordstrom trance feeling ashamed for even imagining how great the Hunter rain boots would be this El Nino winter or for actually calculating how much I would be saving by spending more.  I feel sick at how easily I am drawn into wanting, whether it is new speakers for my husband or that piece of leftover pumpkin pie sitting in my refrigerator.  I don’t need it, so I shouldn’t want it, right?

But who wouldn’t want a beautiful accessory or a delicious goody?  Wanting is absolutely natural and research shows we couldn’t even control our wanting if we “wanted” to.  (A lot of corporate money is put into the science of how to make tastes, smells, textures and advertisements appeal to us unconsciously.)  As soon as we see something enjoyable, neurons fire electronic signals in the pleasure center of our brain.  These responses happen without our awareness of it.  I have written before about our “flight/fight” automatic responding to something we fear, well think of this as “want/have” automatic responding to something we desire.

Just like with fight/flight reactions, we can’t expect ourselves not to have want responses.  They are a part of our body’s control system for survival.  What we can do is address our reactions to these responses.  We can slow ourselves down, acknowledge them as natural, and drum up the support of our cerebral cortex, the part of our brain that engages in cause and effect reasoning.  We can decide if our want is in line with our needs, and if our long term goals are best served by our short term behavior.

So don’t shame your wanting.  Desire can be a great motivator, inspiring us to do great things and to dream big.  Treat your wanting as your muse.  It can expose you to all kinds of delightful potential that you may choose or choose not to partake in.  In fact, by recognizing it for the lovely experience it can be, wanting actually loses some of its grip over you.  The next time you want the cookie that will put your blood sugar out of whack, the diamond bracelet in the Tiffany ad embedded in your on-line Wall Street journal article, or your child begs for the toy you can’t afford, try saying, “Of course you want it, who wouldn’t?”  Then enjoy the thought of having it and go on about your day.