“Whensoever a man desires anything inordinately, he is presently disquieted within himself.” (ODAT, 8 October)
It’s OK to have preferences. The difference between a preference and a demand is that the confounding of a preference will be met with equanimity. One prefers this pizza to that, but one is quite as happy with that pizza as this.
If there’s any twinge of disappointment, it’s a demand.
The inordinateness of a desire is the degree to which I have made my happiness conditional on the attainment of its object.
That makes me hostage to fortune.