How to deal with Craving?

[SpiNips]

What's up guys! As I was meditating today I came across this idea of craving and how it makes your life less peaceful/enjoyable. For me it seems hard to understand the concept. Is it wanting a thing so bad that it starts negatively influencing your life? But somehow I was struck with feeling, that if I don't crave anything, how can I justify striving for my goals. I don't know whether I'm going a bit overboard with this thing.

Currently I'm looking up to the Ancient Greeks and Aristotle with the Idea of a Golden Mean. For example the wellbeing of my body consists of a healthy, strong body and a healthy mind that knows what to desire and what to do to in order to get fulfilled.

I'm not sure whether the idea of not craving is really to eliminate wanting, or just to know how to want mindfully. For some reason this bugs me.

What do you guys think?

[SpiNips]

I thought about this a bit. I think the way I see craving at the moment is like this. Craving is wanting something that you think will make you fulfilled. The feeling Gradually increases until it's hard to think about anything else. When you actually get what you craved for there is an initial dopamine burst, but after a while you start to notice how it wasn't what you expected and that it leaves you unfulfilled afterwards.

I think there is a some sort of link with instant gratification. Can you crave for delayed gratification?

[Cam Adair]

Hey! In some ways, cravings are similar to desire, but maybe from more of an uncontrolled state. "Uncontrolled desire" which is heavily influenced by other factors (ie: it's not as "natural") but "appears" natural. Ie: you crave sugar, and you think you just want sugar when in reality it's because of how sugar has influenced your body and brain, it's not so much of a natural thing.

As I shared in this video, one of my friends, Oscar is a Chinese doctor and he taught me how cravings are a form of momentum. So, if you eat unhealthy food, you build momentum in that direction and crave it, whereas the opposite is also true. 

The instant gratification link is there for sure. Think of it with gaming. Your brain's "expectation" is to have that level of high stimulation (high intensity, instant gratification), so that's what it's used to - that's where your momentum is.

[SpiNips]

Thanks! That was an insightful video. I think that my problem was about differentiating the two feelings. Great to see you hit that 1000 subscribers!  

[Cam Adair]

Thanks! Happy you found it valuable. I'm thinking of doing an update to it soon. Remember, many of our feelings are similar. Take for instance, nervousness & excitement. In many ways, they are similar, one's just a bit more on the "negative" side of the spectrum and the other is on the "positive". But the feelings and experience in our bodies tends to be similar. Butterflies, etc. I'd encourage you to read up on the concept of Equanimity. Also I just noticed I have over 1,000 posts on here now.