Between wants and needs

A magazine once published an amusing story about an organization which offered a bounty of $5,000 each for wolves captured alive ...It turned Sam and Jed into fortune hunters.  Day and night they scoured the mountains and the forests looking for their valuable prey. Exhausted one night, they fell asleep on the ground, dreaming of their potential fortune.  Suddenly, Sam awoke to discover that he and Jed were surrounded by at least 50 angry wolves with flaming eyes and bared teeth.

Sam nudged his companion and said, “Jed, wake up!  We’re rich!”

During the United States Great Depression, many wealthy people lost everything.  And many gave personal testimony which said they had not begun to discover what life was all about until their fortunes had been wiped out. Why should this virtue wait until disaster strikes and the wolves are at the door to wake up to the truth of Henry David Thoreau’s observation that “Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

“It is not the man who has too little but the man who craves more who is poor” wrote an ancient Greek philosopher.

“The covetous man is ever in want,” wrote an ancient Roman philosopher.

“Who is more satisfied, the man with ten children or the man with $10 million?” asked a modern day philosophy professor. “The man with the ten children,” a student answered. “Why?” asked the professor.  And from the rear of the room a student called out, “Because the man with ten children doesn’t want any more.”

One of our troubles could be that we confuse wants with needs.  How many times have you said, “I need a new car,” or “I need new clothes,” or “I need a new house,” or “I need” this or that, when those “needs” weren’t actual needs at all, but wants. The point is, you can legitimately want all those things, but they aren’t needs that address any of life’s fundamental issues.

Frankly, that’s what I tell myself all the time.

I turn to the Ilocana and say, “Sweetheart, I just need a black colored pair of jeans” and she keeps quite but gives me that look that says, “Why do you need another one when you have a closet full of them?”

So I justify, I rationalize and I am a master of it.

True enough after spending a lot of money buying what I “NEEDED…” It stays there in the closet taking up more space until I decided I “NEEDED” some more. I love timepieces. And this makes the Ilocana nervous.

You see women buy things more frequently but men buy big ticketed items.

And every time I walk into Lucerne or Chronos she gets nervous. I remember one time her asking me point blank, “Sweetheart, you have so many timepieces why do you need another one?” I looked at the Ilocana seriously and said with a somber tone of voice: “Sweetheart, I need more time.”

People laugh at my quip but she doesn’t. Now here comes the rationalization: “Watches are men’s jewelries,” I reasoned. “We don’t wear diamonds so we wear watches. In business, the watch you wear is a measure of your success status and potential to do business.” It sounded so convincing such that had you been listening you would have rushed to the same stores and buy a few pieces yourself.

One HR professional from the BPO industry said, “Francis, I would like you to do a program for our young people. They really need help.” I asked why and she explained. “At the end of the month, no matter how huge their pay is they still end up with no savings while some of them run into debts.”

The ability to justify and rationalize is an expertise fallen humans like you and me are good in doing. Clarify the needs from wants.

In reality here are the things we really need:

Zeroth. The need to love and the need to be loved.

• The need for friends and the need to be a friend.

• The need to forgive.

• The need to be of service to others who are in need.

• The need to embrace an attitude and approach to life that is in harmony with God’s Will and the need to set our hearts on His Kingdom and righteousness first and then the rest of the equation can be filled by Him.

And the beautiful thing about this is when we pursue the real things we need, we will no longer be in want.

(Send me your feedback and write me: [email protected] You can also listen to my radio program “Business Matters” aired 8:30a.m. and 6:30 p.m. daily over 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.)