Wants Versus Needs

Wants versus needs. There are actual needs, and there are arbitrary wants. The most basic needs you as a human require for survival are oxygen, water, food, clothing and shelter. Anything beyond those are "wants".

Many things can satisfy your basic needs. A cave for shelter, a blanket for clothing, rainwater for water, but you must have them for basic survival. Wants have nothing to do with actual survival.

When you cannot distingush betweent wants versus needs, or if you can't identify a want as a want, you set yourself up to live in a constant state of craving and disappointment.

If you don't get an item or situation you have been hoping for, ask yourself if it was just an arbitrary want. Was it something you decided to want based on an advertisement or suggestion, or did it just pop into your head?

Don't get me wrong--I want things I don't need just as much as anyone. But when it looks like I may not get them, I ask myself what it is, and realize in almost every case, it was just an arbitrary want, brought on by a "that would be cool" whim that popped into my head out of no where.

When you recognize a want as just a want, you begin to realize the silliness of wanting things and situations based on nothing in particular, and the futility of being disappointed when they don't materialize.

But isn't it selfish to want money or a job or a relationship or cool stuff? It depends. If your desires are born of the ego, of a desire to avoid bad feelings or lack or lonliness, or to boost your identity, yes--that is selfish, and even if you get what you want, it will not help you to feel good. But if your goals are born of spirit--of a desire to share, to create beauty and good, to help others lose their ever-present fear that drives them to seek happiness in things that cannot give it to them, no, that is not selfish. That is spiritual. That is God-like. Yes, you can want and have abundance and still be spiritual and not be selfish. Why can this be true? BECAUSE WHEN YOU THE EGOLESS SPIRIT GET THE THINGS YOU WANT, THE ENTIRE WORLD BENEFITS.

Why do we want? Rarely is it for survival as even the homeless find a way to survive. We want because we seek a sense of self-enhancement, of fulfillment and because we don't know how to find what we feel we lack, (the feelings that can only be found from within), we go looking outside ourselves for it. We look desperately through catalogues and want ads and malls and showrooms under the false pretense that if a little is good, more is better.

The concept of more imprisons all of humanity with the never ending, never fulfilling promise of betterment. It stains our thoughts and very beings with its fear driven seeking, the kind of seeking that never allows you to once and for all, find.

For with each apparent find, the concept of more, though quelled momentarily, begins to rise anew, either through a perceived lack in the new find, or in some tangential direction. As long as the never ending, never satisfied addiction to more pervades our thoughts, happiness and peace of mind will stay just out of reach.

How can we possibly rise above the addiction to more? Through the concept of enough. But how much money, how much love, how much stuff is enough? As long as you are addicted to more, there will never be enough of anything.

Look around you.

Are you sheltered from sun and rain right now? If the answer is yes, then you have enough shelter. Can you pay for the basics of life in society and still eat and be clothed? If yes, then you have enough money. Can you enjoy yourself when you make time to, no matter how little it costs? Then you have enough enjoyment.

HOLD IT! I'm not saying that a meger existence is better than having abundance, I'm giving you a basic guide to help you decide how much is enough. For when you know know how much is enough, you are by definition free of the plague of more!

As long as you focus on more, you can never arrive at enough, but if you know how much is enough, you can recognize when you have a surplus and appreciate your bounty and if you want, share it with others. The key to having more than enough is to not allow yourself to raise the bar for what constitutes enough as your fortune increases. Once you begin to raise your requirements for what is enough, you have once again become posessed by more. You have more, so you want more.

Because the concept of more resides in the future, if you don't set a rock bottom set of basics for what is enough, you will never have enough because you are always looking forward in time and the only time that can be lived is now. Do you see the futility, the very insanity and suffering that living in the false promise of more brings to you?

I want to make more money, yet RIGHT NOW I have enough. But what can I gain from more money? How about "financial security", or a "secure retirement" or my kid's future college education paid for or my student loans paid off. I too, maybe to a lesser extent than most, sometimes want more, though I know I have enough. To recognize that you want more even when you know you have enough will help you break free of more.

I gave up my guaranteed retirement under the guise of preventing my employer from going bankrupt. They went bankrupt anyway, and I played the perfect victim, even though I voted to give it up. I had "lost" something I never really had, and so I was diminished as a person, or so I thought.

It was this very loss, this seemingly horrible adversity that brought me to seek myself not in dollars or toys or the things that the ego loves, but in being. Just prior to my huge pay and benefits cuts, I was making ridiculous money, yet I found my self asking: Is this all there is? I am far happier now than when I had more because I no longer trust in the future. The future will be what it will be and whatever I have then will be enough, I know that. I have enough now, I know I'll have enough then. That, friends, is financial security. It knows no numbers, it only knows enough, and I will always have enough.

To live in being, to live for the very joy of life, to live in the now, and to know that I have enough right now makes me far richer than the one with ten times the stuff and money and prestige that I have, as long as that person seeks comfort in more. If that person with far more material things than I knows he has more than enough, then we are equally wealthy.

It is wise to contribute a portion of your pay to a retirement account, and I still do. But there is no magic number that I must achieve to finally know that my future is "secure". True wealth is knowing that you will always have enough, no matter how much that is.

Here's a thought--up to now I've referred to the "Enough" concept with respect mostly toward money, toys such as cars, boats, jewelry and the basic physical needs but what about love, sex, creativity, physical condition and happiness? Money and stuff are things you acquire, where the love and sex we seek are given to us and shared by others. Creativity, physical conditioning and happiness are gifts you give to yourself.

Money, and stuff are a product of your will to acquire. Physique, creativity and happiness and the amount of each you enjoy are controlled by you only. If you lack these things you have only to ask yourself why.

But love, if that is something that you feel you lack, cannot be forced. If you are desperate for a relationship, the candidates you meet will sense this and run away. But if you release the meeting of a significant other to the universe, it will happen and the relationship will not be tainted by the plague of more. If in your judgement, you are not "feeling the love", or feel that nobody cares about you, you must give love away as though you had a lifetime supply. Friends, relatives, whoever, just give like you've never given before. But before you give all this love away, give it to yourself first.

When you love yourself first, the love you give others will be genuine, and though you shouldn't ever give anything away expecting some kind of return, love given away will be returned to you in ways you may not even notice. Giving it away might even feel better than getting it from others. If you feel you lack love coming from others, give yourself a bunch and that may just be enough.

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