Wants and Needs
the heart wants what it is in want of
1. Needs Must?
Being a grown-up means knowing your needs from your wants. We’re told to prioritize the former and distrust the latter. Our needs are important. Our wants are seen as indulgent and impulsive.
It makes sense. Needs must be met.
We need to eat to survive. We need to keep the lights on. We need other people.
These needs are life’s maintenance.
But that can’t be it.
2. Found Wanting
In Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey recounts a time early in his Hollywood career. Struggling to find jobs, he went to his contact Don:
“Hey, Don, you think you can get me a meeting with an agent, man? I only got a few grand to my name and I need to get some work.”
Don snapped back “You shut that @#$%ing talk up right now! This town smells needy; you are done for before you even get started, you hear me!!! You need to get the @#$% out of here! And don’t come back until you’re ready to not need it!”
Hear yourself say:
I need this job.
I need to eat.
I need you.
How do those words sound? Try saying them out loud with different pitch and cadence.
It feels… needy. Like it carries a scent of desperation.
Now say:
I want this job.
I want to eat.
I want you.
Hear the difference? There’s hunger and desire.
You stand differently when you want. Everyone else notices it too. Employers want workers with hunger. Partners love to be desired. It’s an affirmation.
3. The Heart Wants What it is in Want of
Needs make us similar. Wants make us specific.
We need to eat. What do you want to eat?
We all need a place to stay. Where do you want to live?
We need a job. What do you want to do with your life?
Wants are a focusing lens. They surface that deeper, oft-neglected side of you.
It’s why people don’t ask themselves what they truly want in life. They don’t express their true desires. It doesn’t even have to be of the Freudian kind. It’s just safer to mimic someone else’s desires.
The other thing is, wanting is uncomfortable. To name a want is to admit a lack. Something unfulfilled. There’s no guarantee you’ll have it.
But once it’s named, you have to feed it and risk growing its appetite. Or, let it starve and die.
4. Wanton Destruction
There are reasons why society reins in wants.
Wanting can be indulgent. A hunger that can never be satiated. It is avarice, gluttony and lust.
Unchecked wants devour everything in sight.
On the far end, wants should not be suppressed or repressed either.
Stifling down your own desires, your own aspirations, lest you offend other people. You keep playing it small. Not exposing yourself to the judgement of everyone else. Not incurring shame and failure. You end up carrying this burden of a life unfulfilled.
Suppression also feeds what Carl Jung calls the Shadow—your deep, neglected core. It will manifest and wreak havoc.
5. Necessary and Sufficient
Needs are necessary, but not always sufficient.
But wants are wholly unnecessary, and nothing can ever suffice.
What’s the resolution?
Wants set the aim. They give you an objective to direct your focus. Needs set the constraints. The conditions you have to satisfy to get your objective.
You want that thing so badly. You have to figure out what you need to do to earn it.
Wants and Needs work in tandem, not in conflict.
I guess being a grown-up is knowing how to hold these two in tension to serve you.
Epilogue
It’s currently Ramadan. The daylight fast brings about some weariness but also clarity. I’m hungry throughout the day, but I’m focused.
I used to think that monks and ascetics have this psychology absent of hunger and desires. Or some inexhaustible willpower honed through sheer discipline. How else can one sit still for hours on end.
But I understand differently now.
I don’t think they suppress hunger. I think they learned to channel that feeling into focus. They let the intrusive thoughts flow out unimpeded.