Need vs. Want

I recently read an interesting post on the Deliberate Receiving Blog.  This is a great blog to gain perspective on your life, obviously something I’m looking for.  She basically says don’t need your wants, and then they will come to you.  I’m not sure I agree with this, but it’s an interesting thought.

It really made me think about Need Vs. Want.  A lot of us have the tendency of saying we need something, when we really just want something, and I thought this might be a good topic to discuss right around Christmas time, when our wants tend to outweigh our needs.

Basic Needs include the following:

1.       Water

2.       Food

3.       Shelter

4.       Clothing

These are some Wants:

1.       Love

2.       iPhone 4GS

3.       Lots of Money

4.       Big House

Ok, so Love really can go on both lists.  I mean, newborns need to be loved.  They need to be cared for and that requires some amount of unconditional love.  As you get older, I think Love becomes a Want.  You Want to feel like someone loves you and that you love them back.  It definitely changes.  You’re always looking for that unconditional “mother” love that you felt as a child.

I found myself recently thinking, “I really NEED a new computer or I really NEED the new iPhone 4GS.”  This statement is erroneous.  I WANT a new computer.  I WANT something that will not shut down on me every 5 minutes, and I WANT an awesome new phone! 

When I think this way, I like to correct myself by thinking of people who live in developing countries and don’t even have their basic NEEDS met.  Their NEEDS and WANTS are intertwined.  They NEED and WANT food and shelter.  They WANT and NEED clean water and clothing.  When I think about my WANTS, and I feel like I don’t have ENOUGH, then I just like to jolt myself back into reality and realize that I don’t NEED for anything, I just WANT a lot.

Post Script:
After I wrote this post (a few days ago), my family sat down to watch "A Christmas Carol."  (By the way, if you have small children you may want to screen the Jim Carrey version before letting your kiddos watch it--it is quite scary!).  Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol back in 1843, but many of the themes from this book hold true today.  I didn't remember when the Ghost of Christmas Present is leaving Scrooge to make way for the Ghost of Things to Come, he shows Scrooge the children of man: Ignorance and WANT.  WANT has destroyed Scrooge's life.  Sure, he has plenty of money, but he has no one to share it with, and he is ignorant to other people's NEEDS.  He has pushed everyone in his life away from him to get what he WANTS.  In the end, he learns that he NEEDS to be more charitable, in order to help someone he cares about deep down,Bob Cratchit, provide the basic NEEDS for his family.  He realizes in the end that not giving into WANT will lead him to have a more meaningful life (and of course escape an afterlife in chains!). 

This provided a classic example of how being aware of our NEEDS and other peoples' NEEDS can help us lead better lives. 

Patience and Selflessness

Selfish people are not patient.  Patience is a virtue, so why wasn’t I blessed with it?  I try every day to have patience and to be less selfish.  As I’m listening to a child scream, kick his legs on the floor, throw a toy across the room, I ask my inner self for patience so I don’t act in anger.  I find myself having limited patience with the kids.  At bedtime, if they won’t go to sleep, then I get mad.  I feel like they are infringing upon my precious alone time.   I hurry them into the bed and through clenched teeth I yell, “Just stay in bed!”  A lack of patience promotes anger, not only in me, but in the kids too.  It’s me being impatient with the kids, so I can get on with my own life.

In the US, we’re always striving for the next best thing.  This is a “me, me, me” culture.  We want something better, we want it faster, and generally we want more of it.  The mentality is that selfishness and impatience is rewarded.  This makes it very hard to strive for selflessness and patience in our lives.

As I find myself searching, I can’t help but remember Shel Silverstein’s great poem, “Ladies First.”

Pamela Purse yelled, “Ladies first,”

Pushing in front of the ice cream line.

Pamela Purse yelled, “Ladies first,”

Grabbing the ketchup at dinnertime.

Climbing on the morning bus

She’d shove right by all of us

And there’d be a tiff or a fight or a fuss

When Pamela Purse yelled, “Ladies first.”

Pamela Purse screamed, “Ladies first,”

When we went off on our jungle trip.

Pamela Purse said her thirst was worse

And guzzled our water, every sip.

And when we got grabbed by that wild savage band,

Who tied us together and made us all stand

In a long line in front of the King of the land-

A cannibal known as Fry-‘Em-Up Dan,

Who sat on his throne in a bib so grand

With a lick of his lips and a fork in his hand,

As he tried to decide who’d be first in the pan-

From back of the line, in that shrill voice of hers,

Pamela Purse yelled, “Ladies first.”

As I child I used to imagine Cannibal Dan, grabbing me and eating me up.  Being the baby,

I had learned to become somewhat selfish.  I’ll admit it I was even a bit spoiled, like Pamela Purse.  We all learn how to share as children, in essence how not to be selfish, but sometimes we also learn how to be selfish.

When we are born, our parents selflessly give us everything.  As newborns, we depend on the care of our parents and the nurturing, the patience, the self-less giving.  As we grow we learn to share with others.  We also learn that we have wants, and in order to fulfill them we have to be a little bit selfish.  My question is: Why can’t we give more of ourselves to others around us?  We need to learn to be less selfish and more patient with people in our lives.  We need to teach our children to give of themselves, to become selfless.  We can do this by living these values.  This is still something that I’m learning, re-teaching myself how to be selfless and not selfish like Pamela Purse.