The word longing is used to indicate that feeling of desire or passionate hope that a person may have in certain situations or moments in their life.
It is wanting something very intensely.
Intense desire for something
The longing is the preference for something to happen and the desire for that to happen since at the moment the longing exists it is not a reality. To long for something is to wish for it, but in a more utopian way but at the same time with more details or more vehemently than with a simple desire.
Craving can be described as a desire that combines both physical or organic elements as well as psychological or mental elements. This is so because by yearning for something the person moves both his mental and emotional realm towards it as well as his physical realm, putting his energies and forces into it. Longing is the hope of achieving or managing to live certain situations that could generate joy, pleasure, happiness or satisfaction for one but which are not yet reality.
Material and immaterial yearnings
The wishes can be directed to material or symbolic issues. Within the materials, the most common wishes are usually to buy a house, a car, clothes, accessories, a last generation cell phone, among others.
The person feels that the disposition of some of these material goods will make him feel better, happier, more fulfilled, and then he will make work efforts to be able to gather the necessary money and be able to buy them.
On the other hand, the desire may consist of being able to live some specific experience that is also linked to enjoyment and happiness. Traveling to a place that is considered unique, graduating from a university degree, achieving a high professional level, starting a family, becoming a mother or father, among the most desired.
The yearnings that are associated with the affective are also frequent and very important, and for example, they are characterized by their intensity and the relevance that those involved attribute to them. Among these we can highlight the desire to spend life with that person we love.
For psychology, longing is a complex concept that revolves around the human being and its possibility of rational abstraction. Thus, no animal or living being beyond the human being can yearn for something consciously. In addition, one of the characteristics of longing is precisely its condition of fantasy or non-real element since when what one wanted becomes reality, the longing ceases immediately.
The feeling of longing can occur in any type of person and throughout different moments of life. An individual may even have several wishes at the same time and seek to fulfill them all. On the other hand, there are certain illnesses or mental conditions, such as depression, that prevent the person from having a longing or desire for anything since they cannot generate in themselves a feeling of hope, of possible pleasure or joy.
Happiness for achieving the desire and sadness at the impossibility of doing so
When the wishes fail to materialize at some point, it is common for the person to feel frustration, which may be more or less important depending on the degree to which something has been desired.
Sadness and anguish are usually the two emotions that are experienced when the desire is not fulfilled, while, if these states persist over time, making it impossible for the person to continue with their normal life, it will be essential that they consult a professional to perform a psychotherapy that allows you to overcome such a situation of great frustration.
And as we have already pointed out, the other side will be to make what was longed for a reality. From that moment on, the person will be invaded by the satisfaction and joy of having achieved what was so desired.
