Needs vs Desires
Human perception over our needs is at best limited, but in most cases is never even taken into account. People have a tendency to live their lives based on the misleading idea that we will constantly try to obtain what we want, while the truth is that we only put in effort to obtain what we need.
To understand why this is happening, we first need to take a closer look at what defines “desires” and “needs”. Through desires we understand a strong feeling of wanting something, that is usually described as nice to have or expected of us, but does not usually lead to behavior. Needs are desires that our mind decided must be gratified, leading to a behavior. Most of the time they are described as insufficiencies in our lives or something that is essential for our well-being. The key element in defining and understanding needs is that they always lead to some form of action.
So why is it that people always talk about their desires?
Well, first of all, desires are things we think we need. They are usually projected in the future and promise our minds well-being and satisfaction. But when further analysed we discover that desires are generally described, often based on external factors or situations and are very easy to talk about. When describing desires, we use words like “nice”, “wish”, “would” or “could” in order to represent an ideal situation in the future where our lives are better and with a higher degree of satisfaction.
On the other hand, because of the subconscious nature of our needs, we find it difficult to describe needs, even though their satisfaction implies rapid and seamless action. Needs are always focused on the present or the immediate future and have a great impact on our personal satisfaction and our mood. When describing needs, we use words like “want”, “must” and “should”, but defining the need and the expected outcome is usually difficult as it is based on our perception and internal beliefs.
In order to have a clear understanding of needs, let’s take a look at the basic needs people have:
Eating — the need for food and nourishment
Family — the need to take care of one’s offspring
Independence — the need to be distinct and self-reliant
Curiosity — the need to gain knowledge
Order — the need for prepared, established and conventional environments
Idealism — the need for social justice
Physical activity — the need for working out the body
Power — the need for control of will
Romance — the need for mating or sex
Saving — the need to accumulate something, usually in order to prepare for unforeseen negative events
Tranquility — the need to be secure and protected
Social contact — the need for relationship with others
Social status — the need for social significance, in our social extended groups
Acceptance — the need to be appreciated by others for our actions and thoughts
Honor — the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual’s group, family or clan
Vengeance — the need to strike back against another person that has wronged you or has made you lose something
So why is important to differentiate between desires and needs?
Most of our failures and negative emotional states are generated by our belief that we should accomplish our desires while at the same time not being willing or able to invest the necessary time and resources into achieving them. Usually, people confuse desires with needs, and plan according to this misconception. Intrinsic motivation helps us invest some actions into our desires, before we involuntarily focus on our needs, leading to wasted time and effort and the lack of accomplishments in our lives.
Also, needs are the foundation stones for building our daily habits. Between 40% to 60% of our everyday activities and habits are based on satisfying our needs. The unconscious nature of habits, means that we are not aware of why we do some of the things that we do and the resources we invest in doing those things. We just assume that this is normal, because, for our minds, due to the satisfaction of our needs, this is the normal expected behavior.
So, in order to achieve things beyond the satisfaction of our needs, we first need to identify the ways we satisfy our needs, and if needed, change those habits to others with the same effect but with less resource and time consumption. Further than that, we need to be aware and understand the needs we strive the most to satisfy as they are the main reason of our actions.
In order to avoid wasting our time and generating frustration, we also need to understand our desires. Desires might be perceived as leading to a higher satisfaction or higher quality of life, but they rarely motivate us enough to make us take action. This is because desires are usually the result of external values that we assimilate as our own. For example, we are constantly shown people with a lot of money that have “dreamy” lives and we start to believe that this is what we should have, while in reality we might not need money all that much.
It stands to reason that we need to be aware of both our needs and our desires. Needs are difficult to change, but we can adjust the level of effort put in satisfying our needs. Desires are difficult to satisfy, especially if they are not our own. To achieve a balanced life, we need to discard desires that are not our own and focus on personal desires to the extent allowed by the satisfaction of our needs.
For example, we might desire lots of money to achieve a high social rank, but we may need an ordered and stable environment. Satisfaction of this need requires a smaller sum of money beyond which the need is satisfied, but which is not enough to satisfy the desire. The sum of money required for a stable environment is not enough to ensure a high social status. However, we can achieve a high social status by investing in our education, which would also satisfy our need for knowledge and our curiosity. In this way, we satisfy our desire for a high social rank while at the same time we satisfy three of our natural needs.
Balance and success depend on the awareness of our needs and how we achieve them and the filtering of our desires, making sure we invest time and resources in relevant, intrinsic desires.
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