What I want vs. what I need
Lately I’ve been having some pretty intense internal dialogues about wanting things.
“I WANT this to not be my problem.”
“I WANT this room to be clean.”
“I WANT to be with someone right now.”
“I WANT this arduous planning to be done for me.”
“I WANT to go to a cool new years eve party.”
“I WANT to have tons of friends and too many plans.”
“I WANT this person to get back to me now.”
My selfish self would reach and claw at these like a frustrated toddler. An immature, entitled child that demands things. I’ve been a bit more isolated during the holiday, probably spending about 50% less time having social interactions with people than I normally do, so I’ve had a lot more “in my head” time than usual.
I had to step back a bit with all of this “wanting” and think to myself “why do I WANT? Is WANTing things a reliable signal for what’s good for me? What if I have been neglecting what I actually NEED?”
The holidays can be a challenging time to come to terms with this balance of WANT and NEED – especially when the sinful indulgences of sweets surround us and the cold weather inspires sloth. The year is also coming to an end… so it’s easy to put off what’s good for us for later.
Our hesitancy to tackle a problem reveals the real problem which often stems from ourselves. In thinking about WANTing, you can learn a lot about what you NEED from dissecting your WANTs.
“I WANT this to not be my problem.” ← Not taking ownership, therefore should acknowledge and come up with a plan
“I WANT this room to be clean.” ← Being lazy, should set aside time to take the smallest acction.
“I WANT to be with someone right now.” ← Being non-specific, boredom, should find other more constructive ways to entertain myself or should make an effort to connect with someone.
“I WANT this arduous planning to be done for me.” ← Procrastinating, set aside time to take action.
“I WANT to go to a cool new years eve party.” ← Being non-specific, lazy, make an effort to either host an event or reach out to friends earlier in the month.
“I WANT to have tons of friends and too many plans.” ← Entitlement, friends take time to gather and nurture, so I should widen my social circle.
“I WANT this person to get back to me now.” ← Impatience, boredom, I should meditate, and maybe clean my room to be distracted from waiting or browsing social media on my phone.
But even as I go through the list of WANTs I see the path to their solutions… the obvious answer for all of them is that the solutions take a lot of work. In some cases, physical real labor, and in other cases lengthy campaigns of building more friendships.
They. Take. Work.
The NEEDs take work to suffocate the WANTs. The WANTs are achievable, but are too short-term and demanding. The NEEDs are an ongoing process of betterment. Are we confused yet? Let me simplify even more:
WANT – Short-term, fleeting, reactionary, spontaneous
NEED – Long-term, lasting, planned, productive
Probably the quickest way to speed-up getting the NEEDs in place is to change how you think of yourself. “I am the type of person that does X” is a start. This is what James Clear’s super popular book Atomic Habits preaches. In order to achieve things you have to think of yourself as someone that does those things naturally. The struggle of making a habit is believing that you are that type of person and manifesting that lifestyle through doing it long enough to trick your mind out of your imposter syndrome and into the person that just does things.
As an example, I know the solution for one of my WANTs, the one about having a clean room, because I’ve seen what it takes to make happen. A friend of mine in New York has an immaculate apartment and he does it by cleaning everything immediately. Nothing is in a state of disarray for more than a couple minutes after it’s been put out of place.
That example is a pretty simple one, but what about the harder, more complex WANTs, specifically in the social categories?
The solution is probably a more rhythmic, proactive approach to making friends and communicating with them. I love my friends, even though I feel like I have a lot more acquaintances than deep friends, and perhaps my WANT for social time needs to be realized through more consistent outreach. It needs to be a better habit of engaging with my friends. Relationships take a ton of nurturing and work!
The missing NEEDs
But what of the NEEDs that I’m not even thinking about? That’s what really made me want to write this post. My WANTs are short-term, demanding immediate solutions to my monkey-brain problems I come up with on the fly. My WANTs cloud out my more rational NEEDs, and it’s been something I haven’t reflected on very much lately.
Don’t get me wrong, I have ambitions, I am just realizing that my NEEDs represent growth categories that I have been pushing aside. Growth categories like forming long term friendships outside of my comfort zone, or establishing a consistent daily routine, or actually doing the things that I’d like to do without cognitively blending the hell out of them so they don’t see the light of day.
New Years is always a great way to start fresh, even if it’s some weird human time construct thing, and I think this year in particular will be one of intense growth for myself.
So what WANTs are sparking in your toddler brain? What NEEDs should you address and what NEEDs have you not even considered?
The exercise of writing my WANTs down, addressing the NEEDs that I should probably work towards, and coming up with themes of other NEEDs has sobered me up to the things I am avoiding and opportunities of growth for myself.
At the end of the day the inertia of sitting around and not working towards a solution on anything is tough to overcome, but New Years is probably a good of a time as any to kick in a new approach and make the most of your time.
Next time a WANT comes to mind it’ll be a reminder of where I need to go and the work I need to do to 1) be comfortable with not having it in that moment and 2) be confident that I can chart a course to getting it. And if I don’t end up getting it? In the worst case I 3) may end up further down a path of growth than if I were to have done nothing. In the best case, I may actually get that WANT… in relationships too.
WANTs are asking to teleport instantly to the destination when in reality NEEDs are the journey we are meant to learn and grow from.
Happy new year! Hope you enjoyed this post. Please consider sharing it if you felt that it resonated with you!