Let’s face it most of us don’t know what we need or what we want.
If I asked you right now what you needed or wanted, what would you say?
Probably something like… I need a vacation, or I need an assistant, or I want more hours in a day, or I have to figure out how to get my organization to be more efficient, or I want to be thinner, or I want to be healthier, or I need a new relationship, or is it I want a new relationship, and so on and so on. Whether these are needs or wants or personal or business related most times we don’t know if it’s a need or a want or it it’s personal or business.
So perhaps we can begin by defining what is a need and what is a want. A need is something that is necessary. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death, and as you can see, mostly physical in nature. While needs can be objective and physical, such as the need for food and water for our survival, they can also be subjective and psychological, such as the need for self-esteem, or a need to belong. On a societal level, needs are sometimes controversial, such as the need for a nationalized health care system. Understanding our needs and wants becomes an issue in the fields of politics, social science, and philosophy.
Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist. He is noted for his conceptualization of a “hierarchy of human needs”, and is considered the founder of humanistic psychology. Maslow believed that every person has a strong desire to realize his or her full potential, to reach a level of Self-actualization.
To prove that humans are not simply blindly reacting to situations, but trying to accomplish something greater, Maslow studied mentally healthy individuals instead of people with serious psychological issues. This enabled him to discover that people have “peak experiences,” or high points in life, when the individual is in harmony with himself and his surroundings. Self-actualized people can have many peak experiences throughout a day while others have those experiences less frequently.
So Maslow created the “Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid to explain his Self-actualization theory. At the bottom of the pyramid are the “Basic needs” of a human being, food and water and touch. The next level is “Security and Stability.” These two steps are important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter and safety they attempt to accomplish more. The third level of need is “Love and Belonging,” which are psychological needs; when individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others. The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have accomplished. This is the “Esteem” level, the level of success and status. The top of the pyramid, “Self-actualization,” occurs when individuals reach a state of harmony and understanding.
A want seems to be more simply defined as something that is desired. It is said that people have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Each person has wants. You might want a laptop while your best friend may want a desktop computer. Thus, most people cannot have everything they want and must look for the best alternatives, which they can afford. I want a new car, or I want a game or a I want a vacation or I want a mate or I want more money. I guess in some cases money and a car could be a need, but in true terms of defining need from want there are only a few basic physical needs and emotional needs, which are food, shelter, clothes, love, comfort and sharing.
Besides trying to separate and understand a need from a want we usually can’t separate personal issues from business issues. Typically the problem is that we rarely see what it is we want or need because we are to close to the problem and it becomes very personal. We make so many assumptions from our perceptions of the environment we live in because we think we know someone and when they make a statement about anything we make assumptions about what they meant, which often leads us into trouble. It leads us into trouble because we run the whole scenario over and over again in our heads and sometimes get angry and we haven’t even had the conversation, or we change what we want to say, which may lead to any myriad of problems. Since there are so many potential facets to our relationships and issues we often misjudge the situation. This leads to stress, unresolved issues, anger and mistakes.
So I ask you this question “Do you want to be right or do you want peace?” maybe I should ask “Do you need to be right or do you need peace?” Our attempt to want, need to be right and to have others see us as right is probably one the best ways to create turmoil. You see some things are just not worth being right about. So the next time you having a conversation (not an argument) and before you stomp your foot, bang your hand on the table or yell at someone, think for a moment…. think and act, not re-act and ask yourself this question; How important is it for me to be right and let go of your ego?
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