Cat and Girl on Wants and Needs

This reminds me of how much I despise birthdays and holidays. Everyone always asks me what I want. I don’t want anything! … at least not anything that you can buy.

I’ve never commented here before, and it figures that Cat and Girl is what drives me to do it, and not your fantastic advise on money and frugality.

But, anyways, I love Cat and Girl and would love reading an interview with her. Awesome idea, and I await the post.

Hey-I get lots of socks for Christmas, and I’m perfectly fine with that.
Actually, I did ask for a can of Lysol this past Christmas (my friends laughed at me), and my mom bought three huge bottles. Score! I won’t need Lysol for at least two years.

@Allison

I have the same problem at gift receiving occasions. I just don’t need much of anything and want almost nothing. It’s not that I already have a lot of stuff, it’s that I don’t WANT a lot of stuff.

Electronic gadgets and video game stuff is of no interest to me.

I don’t collect anything anymore.

I own a pretty bare bones computer and upgrades are few and far between and always on the cheap.

I DO enjoy cooking but I already have most of what I want for the kitchen, everything that space allows for at any rate.

I tend to buy durable clothes and keep them forever.

This past Christmas I actually ASKED for socks and underwear. It’s all I really needed.

I think J.D.’s question can take on two wholly different meanings, based on what you mean by a want. One way of looking at it is wanting _stuff_, the other is wanting something out of life. I think Jarik’s response answers both ways of asking the question; his first response is if there are only material wants, his second response is his answer to the question of life’s wants.

I tend to believe that even if all the stuff to want was taken away, their place would be filled with other, more meaningful wants. I think one of the first steps in living a frugal lifestyle is the realization that there are so many better things in life to want than stuff.

I think this kind of thing is overly extreme.

I don’t see anything intrinsically wrong with or dirty about wanting something.

Wanting something doesn’t mean you can’t be happy, joyful, and responsible in the present. In fact the “utopia” that one person mentioned (having to do with meeting your needs and then not striving for anything) sounds like hell if you think about it for three seconds.

I struggled and struggled to give family members gift ideas for my birthday and Christmas, as I am seriously trying to get rid of as much Stuff as I can part with. I finally asked for restaurant gift cards (so my kids can practice behaving themselves in restaurants) and Pier One gift cards, so I can get some pretty scented candles, which I would never be able to justify spending money on. The gift cards still sit in the kitchen because I really can’t be bothered to go shopping, even on someone else’s dime. Progress!

I think it completely depends on the definition of “want” as Anne above says.

For example: I spent my first year of college only reading text books and assigned things. I got severely depressed and unhappy and couldn’t figure why or how to help myself. One night I found an 800 page fiction novel I’d bought years ago and hadn’t read yet that was just sitting among the books on my shelves. I curled up, spent all night and half the next day reading it. I felt tons better.

For me certain things that might be a ‘want’ for others are closer to a need. Books and games are these sorts of things. The mental stability and stimulus I get out of them combined with the social factor of gaming with my friends (I don’t know if anything beats the camaraderie of avoiding a dungeon full of traps to slay a dragon) is worth a lot to me. Health (emotional, physical, and mental) isn’t a want.

I think putting things into two categories makes it a little oversimplified. There are basic needs like food and shelter. Then there are other needs, which while being less life-threatening in an immediate sense, when done away with due to dire necessity can have long lasting and horrible effects on the wellbeing of a person. For me these are things such as companionship, personal growth, and physical/mental health. So called “stuff” often comes hand in hand with these things. The key, as always, is balance.
True “wants” for me are things like candy, going out to the movies, a hybrid car (I can dream), a house of my own etc…

Also, if people really stopped desiring anything, we’d never see any more great literature. All stories at the core have to do with either/both wanting and losing, desire and death. If we stopped wanting anything, where would be the hope? The drive for improvement? I think the answer is less, not stopping.

(also, since when did wanting something become synonymous with spending money?)

In a lot of languages there is no difference between the words “need” and “want”.

I agree with AB that putting things into two categories oversimplifies things, and I’m not sure exactly what “wants” are.

I’ve been trying to think of the ideas here in terms of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs (Physiological; Safety; Love/belonging; Esteem; Self-actualization)… maybe “wants” are things that we buy in order to try to fulfill some of the higher needs. It feels unsatisfying because once the lustre of the purchase wears off the underlying need is still there and we must buy again.

For example, buying certain clothes in order to belong to a peer group. If a person has an underlying need for belonging but is trying to fill that hole with a superficial purchase (a “want” item) it won’t give lasting satisfaction.

so maybe a “want” is a short-term fix for a need …

great blog btw!

How does one differentiate between intangible (psychological) wants and needs?

If someone says they need/want peace and quiet and privacy, are those wants or needs?

Hello JD and fellow commenters,

1) I agree that ‘wants’ have become too bloated.
I believe that wanting new experiences and meaningful memories remains a basic human need.
Unfortunately, consumerism has bloated this basic need artificially and abnormally.
So people today spend in excesses.
They end up possessing too much material stuff.

2) There was a time when my country, struggling to develop itself economically, was a nation of super-savers.
Today, this society is filled with super-spenders, similarly like yours.
It’s become easy to blame Westernisation for all that blatant squandering.
Actually, I suspect many people surrendered and sold off their right to natural happiness.

3) I’ve always been a bookworm, but have been unable to buy many physical books for years now, although I can easily afford to.
There’s just too much fabulous free content on the Web!
That’s why in a recent post on my own blog, I called for supporting digital content over print media.

4) Our late mother was the model super-consumer.
Recently, 2 years after her unfortunate passing, we finally completed the struggle to dispose of her now-suddenly-useless possessions.
Thank goodness it was not more than over 100 large black trash bags of clothes, shoes, handbags, books, appliances etc. … and truckloads of bulky movables to dispose.
All this in the space of a single public apartment.
None of us had the time, energy or means to eBay off the lot, or transport it to charity.

5) My 2-cents question to add to this discussion:

What do you carry off with you when you die?

6) As individuals, let’s condense our lives as we deem fit.
The larger society and economy will adjust to accommodate our collective efforts.
Always has been that way.

Wants are totally fine, without them we would have nothing to strive for or build towards.

For me I totally want a PlayStation3, but my other wants; my own house, promotion at work etc take much higher place. So I push for those that I really want and wait on the silly wants, I would much rather have an extra $600 in my 401k than a PS3.

When the time and the price is right I’ll get one.

From JD: But I do think that in U.S. culture, we’ve been taught to indulge our wants.

and from Aleks: Consumer debt growth has been driving the economy in recent years. Obviously that is unsustainable over the long term, so what happens when people stop borrowing to buy stuff–not because they change their outlook, but because nobody will lend them any more money? In my opinion, this is something we’re going to find out. I think the negative effects are going to be spread out over everyone, including people who already live below their means.
***

Our powerfully consumerist culture INVENTS wants. To exist at all, the economic structure we’ve built has to convince us that we want a lot of stuff that we don’t need and that, once we get past the all-pervasive hype urging us to buy buy buy, we realize we don’t want.

Problem is, as Aleks points out, our whole economy is built on this impetus. We have a president who for better or worse recognized that when he told us the patriotic response to 9/11 was to go to the mall and spend money.

When the impetus to spend goes away, either because most people can no longer afford to buy on whim or because they smarten up and make a free choice to quit filling their lives with junk and unnecessary services, the engine that drives our economy will sputter to a stop.

Uhm…is that an engine knock I hear right now?

I’ve not heard of this comic before; that’s great! I so think that the monks got it right (if too extreme for the vast majority) when they got rid of their worldly possessions…

“But I do think that in U.S. culture, we’ve been taught to indulge our wants.”

I agree. I went to a conference that was located next to a ritzy shopping area, and I indulged in a couple of things, but felt a little bad about it later. When I told a coworker that I probably overspent, her reaction was, “No, good for you! You deserve to have it.” She also says she’s accepted that she and her husband will never get out of debt. Ouch.

I’m making serious progress, though. Several HUGE boxes of stuff are going to Goodwill today, and a big box of books is going to Half Price. And it’s only the beginning. I’m tired of “stuff.” I want things like vacations, memories with family and friends, and new experiences, and the “stuff” is just weighing me down.

It seems like as a whole, we’re just bored, or looking for what’s next. I have a friend who does this constantly. She pressured her now-husband into marriage, talking about it all of the time. After the newness wore off, it was time to have a baby. Her house bored her after a year, and she was devastated when they lost out on a deal for a home they couldn’t have afforded anyway. She liked my car, so she went and bought one similar (although, because mine was 1.5 years old, my payments were half of what she paid for hers new). She thinks if she goes shopping and doesn’t buy something, she’s “the poor one” in the group. We’re not very close anymore because we just don’t have a lot in common.

Dear April (March 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am),

I’ve been thinking about what you said.

1) Congratulations on lifting yourself above the zone of indulgence, into the zone of wisdom!

2) Desire is very human, yet going for lifelong experiences and memories is still far more lasting and enduring, than hopping from one fashionable material good to another trend-of-the-moment.

What I have noticed about really happy people, is they are deeply satisfied by even ‘small’ things in life.

At the same time, I also had to watch, as some really unhappy people constantly hungered for more, without ever achieving true satisfaction.

It makes me sad to witness this, especially when they happen to be people close to me.

“Peter Pumpkinhead fooled them all. Emptied churches and shopping malls.” – XTC
Is shopping the new form of prayer, malls the new churches, and the economy the new religion? It seems likely, doesn’t it? All these conflicting beliefs on what will fix the economy (make the new gods happy?)…

We are physical beings that crave sensation. That has been sold to us as needing new things, and feeling empty without it. But I’m happiest sitting in the sunshine, or taking pictures, or spending time with my family. By putting a little time and attention into the “little stuff”, it becomes a lot more fulfilling than a new toy.

Besides – wanting is often more experiencing a lack. By fulfilling that perceived lack, we feel better – until the next perceived lack shows up. And the media are experts at showing us newly-minted lack.

I’d think that people getting past their ‘wants’ would be good. There would be more money to spend on things that were more important to them, phasing out whole industries, and making others much larger. There’s still the same creative spark, the same energy. We’d just find more satisfying directions for it.

Maybe more charity, and less inequality? Maybe shorter work hours, and more time spent with friends and family? Careful, well-built, beautiful things instead of MORE things.