Desire

Why are people so afraid of what they want? I believe one of the reasons is our upbringing, we are taught to believe into this eternal karmic justice, that always gives you what you deserve in the end.

We are even taught to be humble and modest, and not to tout our own successes and our own gifts, pretending to be average like everybody else.

Another reason could be the lack of focus once you attain your goals. If you put a lot of thought and effort into achieving something, and not enough into what to do afterwards (a lot of people idealize their goals as well), and then once you reach them you feel empty, 'why am I not the happiest person now that I have what I wanted', and it is harder to design new goals than to just regress a step and retrace the familiar path.

So as soon as people start to do well in life, they start fearing the other side of the karmic wheel. Being afraid of what bad things will happen to them now, sure that they do not deserve the good fortune that had been bestowed upon them.

Sooner or later such people do something to jinx their own fortune, thus validating their own conviction that they do not deserve success and happiness and returning to the comfortable familiar world of hope and sadness.