Wants and Needs are not the same thing, yet we often confuse them in our minds and chase after things which do not serve us, thinking that our wants are our needs. This distracts us from what is truly important in our lives.
A need might be food, shelter, clothing. A want would be a five star meal, a mansion, and designer clothes. Needs fill essential places in our lives. Wants appease a different side of ourselves. While receiving all our needs brings peace and joy to our lives, receiving our wants simply seems to fuel the desire for more wants!
There is nothing wrong with wants. Wants are why we ceased living in caves, eating carrion, our bodies wrapped in plant leaves for warmth. When wants drive every aspect of our lives they no longer serve us in a healthy manner; credit card bills soar, work hours expand to the point we cannot share what we are working for with those who are important to us, our physical and mental health decline. Rather than working towards freedom, we are enslaving ourselves to stuff.
When we find ourselves frustrated that some thing has not arrived in our life, it might be an invitation to ask ourselves if this thing is a want, or is it a need. If after going through your Involved Observer process (and is you don’t know what the Involved Observer process is, order a copy of It’s All About Me and find out) you still feel the need to have something, you can IN-power yourself to achieve that thing, but this time from a much more powerful position.
