{"id":5272,"date":"2010-05-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.courius.com\/desires\/"},"modified":"2023-06-07T10:46:11","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T09:46:11","slug":"desires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.courius.com\/en\/desires\/","title":{"rendered":"Desires"},"content":{"rendered":"

The film \u2018Billy Elliot<\/a>\u2019 (2000) is set in the 1980s in a poverty-stricken mining village in the north of England.<\/strong> The story revolves around an 11-year-old boy living with his no-nonsense father, rebellious brother and a grandmother suffering from dementia. His father has enrolled him for boxing lessons even though he has no talent for the sport and really hates it. One day, as he is leaving the gym after his lesson, he catches a glimpse of Mrs. Wilkinson\u2019s ballet class and is fascinated by what he sees. After some hesitation he decides to try it out. Soon he has exchanged his boxing gloves for ballet shoes but doesn\u2019t dare tell the rest of the family. And when his father and brother eventually find out that the little extra money they have is going towards Billy\u2019s ballet lessons, his life at home becomes intolerable. \u2018Lads do football, boxing or wrestling, no freaking ballet!\u2019 they shout at him. \u2018What’s wrong with ballet?\u2019 he asks indignantly. So it looks as though dancing is absolutely off limits for Billy. But Billy and Mrs. Wilkinson are prepared to do everything in their power to have him audition at the Royal Ballet School in London. So he continues taking ballet lessons in secret. When his father finally sees him in action, he has a change of heart and accompanies Billy to London so that Billy can audition. He gets selected and his career as a professional dancer can begin.<\/p>\n

This film demonstrates how desire and fear go hand in hand.<\/strong> Billy discovers a passion and has the desire to fulfil it. But due to the social network he finds himself in (family, friends, milieu), he doesn\u2019t dare to go for it openly. The fear of being excluded, bullied, or humiliated lead him to following his passion in secret<\/strong>. And so his \u2018growth\u2019 as a ballet dancer is held back.<\/p>\n

This is quite common in day-to-day life too.<\/strong> We all have desires which we don\u2019t follow up on, or only partially, through some fear or other. Perhaps you want to give a new impulse to your career but don\u2019t dare to discuss it because you\u2019re scared that\u2026 Or you\u2019d like to be able to express more explicitly how much you appreciate transparency but you\u2019re afraid to say what you think because\u2026 At last you can take up that top position within your team but don\u2019t dare to because \u2026 And so on and so on.<\/p>\n

What I observe is that you can always think of enough reasons for not doing something.<\/strong> But what if you focus on the reasons for doing something instead of letting yourself become paralysed by your fear? By taking a step in the direction of your desire. What can help you here is to analyse your desire and to expand it by visualizing what it would be like if you followed your passion. What does it look like, how do you behave then, how do you look, what do you say, how does the environment respond to you, what do you feel when you are doing or living it, etc? By doing this exercise, the energy and courage you need to make that first step will be released. And who knows where that might that lead to in the long term? If you want to be inspired by an example of what can happen if you have the guts to follow your passion, watch this video of a fantastic ballet piece performed by a woman with one arm and a man with one leg.<\/p>\n