I enjoyed this post. It seems I'm coming across a lot of Buddhism-related posts this morning, and I like that a lot.

Personally, I struggled with my own conditioned impulses and desires for a long time until I discovered certain Buddhist concepts, and philosophers who had clearly been influenced by these concepts. Namely, Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha.

These philosophical concepts, when realised and applied to my own life, helped me to realise the difference between these "conditioned desires", so to speak; meaning desires that were influenced in me from external variables, and my actual desires. What I mean by this is, before I learned to tell that difference, I acted and behaved in ways that were contrary to how I felt, contrary to things that I understood, and for so long I couldn't understand where this was coming from.

It was me, but it didn't feel like me. My notions of "Self" were at fault here a lot of the time, as I grew up struggling a great deal with ego-influences, etc.

These Buddhist concepts helped me to grow and to understand my way OUT of these troubles, which is why I will credit them and name them wherever possible.

Thanks for the read!