Wants and Needs

“I want it.”  “I need it.”  Very similar yet incredibly different.
There is no doubt there is heaps I want.  Like just about everyone, I want to win the lotto. I reckon I could do heaps with say a million dollars.  To win it though, it would probably be better if I bought a ticket first.  The same applies for houses up for grabs sold by Surf Lifesaving and other very worthwhile charities.
Like just about everyone, I want world peace.  But no matter how badly I seem to want it, it has not happened yet.  I want the work outside to be already done.  Unfortunately for that to happen, I will probably need to do something.  Why isn’t just wanting it enough?
For me, there are some wants that are disguised as needs.  I love stamp collecting.  To do what I had in mind, I needed more sleaves to put the stamps in.  The question I asked myself is “did I really need them?”  In one sense yes I did, as if I did not have them I could not have done the task at hand.  In another sense no.  I could have lived without them.  If it came to a choice of having them or my life, I would probably choose to live.  The same goes for our battery powered drill.  It sure makes life easier having the right tool without needing a chord attached to a wall.  I felt having that drill was a need.  For me it was.  But in the scheme of things it was a want disguised as a need.
It seems we really need very little.  Food and water we need and could not live without.  POW’s looked terribly thin as a result of the deprivation they suffered.  Ads. show kids in third world countries thin and weak because of a lack of basic food needs.  They also show people going kilometres for clean water.  I tell Merril my gut is malnutrition, but that does not work.
Then security and a roof over our head becomes our greatest need.  The thing is though, we can live (for a while at least) without a sense of security.  We can also live without a roof over our heads.  In Melbourne there was a lot more obvious homelessness than up here.  It is not something  I would want for anyone.
Someone I know went to a foreign country.  The whole time they boiled the water to be on the safe side.  In their haste to get to the airport to leave, they did not boil water to clean their teeth.  They have suffered from a stomach bug ever since.
I had a really daggy car.  It got me from A to B but emerging from it in a suit just did not feel right.  A better car came up and my mechanic said “buy it before he changes his mind.”  I got it.  Did I need it?  In one sense yes.  In another sense no, as I could live without it. 
To me, personal needs are totally legitimate.  As long as I have a supply of all I need.  It may be a life and death need or a personal “need” to get a job done.  For me no diff really.  For it to happen, I need it.