The Frequency of Your Desires: Why How You Satisfy Them Matters More Than What You Want
Every human being walks around with the same basic desires. We all want connection, validation, pleasure, security, and meaning. These aren't character flaws—they're hardwired into our biology.
But here's what separates people who build exceptional lives from those who stay stuck: it's not about eliminating your desires. It's about choosing high-quality expressions of them.
Think of it like this: desires are neutral energy sources. The question is whether you're burning that fuel for a quick dopamine hit that leaves you depleted, or channeling it into something that compounds and builds over time.
Let's call these two paths low frequency and high frequency expressions.
Low frequency feels good in the moment but leaves you empty afterward. High frequency requires more discipline upfront but builds momentum, mastery, and lasting satisfaction.
Here's how this plays out across the core human desires.
1. Physical Intimacy and Sexual Energy
We all have this energy. The question is where you direct it.
Low frequency: Quick releases that offer temporary relief but train your nervous system for shortcuts. Casual encounters that provide fleeting validation but no depth or growth. Consuming content that drains your drive rather than channeling it.
High frequency: Redirecting that energy into focused work, intense training, or building systems that move your life forward. When you do engage physically, it's with someone you're building something real with—where trust, commitment, and genuine connection compound over time rather than reset to zero each time.
The principle: sexual energy is rocket fuel. You can burn it for a five-second thrill or harness it to propel yourself toward your biggest goals.
2. Validation and Status
Everyone wants to feel seen and respected. That's human. But there are vastly different ways to get that need met.
Low frequency: Posting for likes, flexing material possessions, showing up at parties just to be noticed. Seeking compliments from strangers whose opinions evaporate the moment you're out of sight. This is status as consumption—you're always chasing the next hit of approval.
High frequency: Building something so undeniable that respect shows up without you asking for it. Becoming so rooted in your principles and competence that external validation becomes noise, not necessity. This is status as a byproduct of genuine achievement.
The shift: stop performing for applause and start building for legacy. The right people will notice. The wrong people don't matter.
3. Wealth and Resources
Money is another form of energy. How you spend it reveals whether you're thinking in days or decades.
Low frequency: Dropping cash on things designed to impress people you don't know. Designer labels, expensive nights out, gadgets you don't need. Chasing "get rich quick" schemes that promise shortcuts but deliver setbacks.
High frequency: Investing in systems, skills, and assets that generate returns long after the initial effort. Building businesses, acquiring knowledge, creating income streams that work while you sleep. Wealth that grows itself and provides freedom, not just flash.
The question: are you spending to feel rich, or investing to become wealthy?
4. Food and Pleasure
Food is one of the most accessible sources of pleasure. It's also one of the easiest places to slip into low-frequency patterns.
Low frequency: Eating for the dopamine spike—junk food, excessive portions, novelty meals that taste great but leave you sluggish. Using food as emotional comfort or entertainment.
High frequency: Viewing food as fuel for performance and longevity. Eating clean, consistent meals that optimize your energy, mental clarity, and physical capability. Treating nutrition as a daily practice of discipline and self-mastery.
This doesn't mean never enjoying food. It means your default relationship with eating is strategic, not reactive.
5. Connection and Belonging
Humans are tribal. We're wired to seek community and camaraderie. But not all connection is created equal.
Low frequency: Showing up to parties and surface-level hangouts that feel fun in the moment but leave no lasting impact. Drinking to manufacture connection. Bonds built on shared distractions rather than shared values.
High frequency: Deep, intentional relationships with people who are aligned with your mission. Mastermind groups, training partners, business allies, and loyal friends who push you to be better. Bonds forged through mutual growth, not mutual escape.
The filter: do the people you spend time with make you better, or just make time pass faster?
6. Entertainment and Stimulation
Your brain craves novelty and stimulation. That's not the problem. The problem is when all your stimulation comes from passive consumption.
Low frequency: Endless scrolling through social media, binge-watching shows, following sports you don't play, consuming content that asks nothing of you and gives nothing back. This is entertainment as anesthesia.
High frequency: Creating instead of consuming. Writing, building, producing something that adds value to the world. Or, when you do rest, choosing inputs that genuinely restore you—reading that challenges your thinking, silence that clears your mind, practices that renew your focus.
The shift: from consumer to creator. From distraction to intentionality.
7. Power and Influence
The desire for impact is natural. But there's a massive difference between ego-driven control and purpose-driven leadership.
Low frequency: Manipulation, domination, pursuing fame for its own sake. Power as a tool for personal validation, where you need people beneath you to feel important.
High frequency: Leadership rooted in service. Using your skills, resources, and influence to create real value for your family, customers, and community. Impact that outlives you because it's built on contribution, not control.
The distinction: low-frequency power asks "what can I take?" High-frequency power asks "what can I build?"
8. Joy and Play
Life isn't meant to be joyless. But there's a difference between pleasure that drains you and joy that energizes you.
Low frequency: Hedonistic escapes that feel fun in the moment but leave you hollow afterward. Chasing novelty for its own sake. Overindulgence that makes you feel worse the next day.
High frequency: Finding joy in the work itself—the mastery, the systems, the creation. Experiencing simple, intentional pleasure with people you're genuinely building with. Moments of play that restore rather than deplete.
True joy doesn't need to be loud or excessive. It comes from alignment.
The Ruthless Truth
Every desire you feel is neutral.
You're not broken for wanting validation, pleasure, connection, or success. You're human.
But the expression of those desires determines whether they build you up or break you down.
Low-frequency expressions give you immediate gratification but leave you emptier than you started. They're designed to keep you coming back for more, trapped in a loop that never satisfies.
High-frequency expressions require patience, discipline, and intentionality upfront. But they compound. They build momentum. They create lasting fulfillment instead of temporary relief.
And here's the beautiful part: when you consistently choose high-frequency expressions, your body and brain start to crave them. The dopamine hits from cheap thrills lose their appeal. You begin to genuinely prefer the slow burn of real progress over the quick spike of empty pleasure.
The best version of yourself isn't the one who eliminates desire. It's the one who learns to express desire in ways that build rather than drain.
Choose your frequency wisely. It determines everything.
