Want Vs. Need

You may find yourself dealing with the confusion surrounding wants and needs. In your mind, you have a pretty good idea what you want to have or experience in this life. Then there’s the greater part of you (that can be somewhat illusive) knowing what experiences in life you need which are meant to bring you the greatest benefit for your life and affecting the lives of those around you. It’s no wonder you experience some conflict trying to balance what you want versus what you need.

Needs

Certainly you have elemental needs we can all agree on, like air, water, food, clothing, shelter and sex (I know, we all have different ideas about sex, but let’s face it, if it wasn’t for sex we wouldn’t be here).

Then there are the things that we want. Our wants are categorized and prioritized by our personal preferences. The higher the priority, the more associated with need what you wants becomes.

Highest Priority

For instance, we all want to have a sense of being safe and secure, have a certain degree of health, wellbeing, and most of us have a longing to be loved. Love is a spectrum which runs from one end representing the admiration for a pet or someone on the fringe of our circle of acquaintances to the other end representing selfless or obsessive admiration and devotion. There is something about love, being loved, giving and receiving love and not quite being able to achieve a level we feel so enthusiastic about obtaining that drives us to extremes.

Of course we have other psycho-emotional desires, like respecting ourselves and being respected by our peers, feeling that our life has some sense of meaning, and that we may be able to contribute in some way to the greater good.

Other Preferences

Some of the other preferences that most of us share include wanting a sense of justice for what is right and what is wrong, a feeling of being unique to one’s self distinguishable from others, while maintaining a sense of camaraderie, self-reliant or independence while feeling as though you are part of a greater group of people, we desire a sense of accomplishment or accumulation of material things, admiration or status among our peers, and if wronged, we want to be vindicated or destroy our enemies.

What Makes You Feel Good?

Above all, we just want to feel good, and fortunately, our society revolves your desire to feel good. In fact, it creates environments to promote a sense of not feeling good, to maintain you in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction so that you are constantly supporting the commercial machine in a furious attempt to find something to make you feel good.

Atop the list of things that make us feel food (though momentarily) are money, drugs and sex. It is generally accepted among the ranks of Americans that money can solve most problems and the more of it one has, the more sense of satisfaction and happiness can be attained. Drugs (or any addictive stimulant, including alcohol, tobacco, chocolate and obsession with various other foods) can offer a false sense of wellbeing, calm or pleasant feeling in solace, and sex (especially when accompanied by orgasm) gives us that emotional high without the use of drugs. These things make us feel good, whether we like it or not.

But do they really satisfy?

Distraction and Addiction

Why are we so attracted to bright and shiny objects?

Here you are, on track, fervently applying your talents and skills on what will have the gretest impact on your life, that of your family and possibly the world when suddenly… What’s that?

It’s interesting to say the least. You justify disengaging for the briefest of moment, only to investigate the interruption for a minute, with the full intention to returning to the subject at hand.

Before you know it, the day is spent. One thing or another has successfully distracted you enough that all your good intentions to be intently productive have failed, and you ask yourself, “Why?”

No need to berate yourself. We all do it, and there’s good reason.

If you’re of the scientific persuasion, it might make you feel better and give you the tools that you need to understand why your mind tends to wander (just like the rest of us) which may enable you to actually do something about it.

We all seek some kind of reward for doing the things that are less than enjoyable. Scientists who study the mind often reach down to lower creatures for clues to uncover the answers of why we do the things we do. Rats think, process instincts and reasoning skills are compact and plentiful, so they make excellent test subjects in the laboratory.

If scientists run tests on rats in cages with levers that dispense an edible treat they can come to reasonable hypothesis of how we also might respond to rewards by studying the results based on the psychology of animals.

Neuroscientists track the electrical and chemical activity of the rat’s brain as it responds to stimuli based on pressing levers and getting something in return, shedding light on how the mind works in terms of short term pleasure and long term happiness, which generates questions to ask about how the results might compare to the human brain.

The subcortex is the pleasure center of the human brain, which is also true for the brains of other animals on this planet including rats. If one were to administer an electrical charge to that portion of your brain, you would feel a surge of pleasure.

Though shocking humans at this spot on the brain is problematic, it can be triggered by drugs such as heroin.

Distraction is not always associated with pleasure. Your attention may be interrupted by something inconsequential and meaningless, which may never result in a sense of pleasure just as Heroin addicts can experience a great deal of need when they burn out the ability of their subcortex to reward their continued drug use, so they experience little or no pleasure response leaving them wanting more all the more as they try to achieve the result they were accustomed to during their regular drug use.

It’s the Wanting

Wanting something is what fuels our distraction. Desire circuits are located near the subcortex and are more prevalent than pleasure circuits and are triggered by the neurohormone, dopamine. The effect of dopamine in this part of the brain is the key component in addictions.

Even when no drug is present, just being reminded of situations, circumstances or any trigger that initiates recollection of the use of the drug, releases a dose of dopamine in the brain, making the addict want to use the drug again to re-experience the full effect even more.

We all are wired to want the things we like due to the desire and pleasure circuitry in the brain being so closely associated. The downside of addiction is that as you bombard the pleasure center repeatedly, it’s ability to make you feel the thrill decreases, leaving the addict to want more and more substance, while casual users are more likely to experience the original high without damaging the subcortex’s ability to thrill.

Engaging in fun activities that are not addictive always have a sense of pleasure associated with them, while routine activities are more closely associated with addictive qualities and become less enjoyable over time, like watching television or engaging with our electronic devices and social media.

We were so excited about our TV that we wanted more and more channels. Now those who have watched it most have hundreds of channels but can’t find anything to watch.

What does your phone use say about you?

Social media is the new heroin, as each interaction produces a dose of sweet dopamine which keeps us wanting/needing more and more… leading to the decline of organic conversation in our culture.

Now that you have a basic idea about why your body reacts like it does to certain stimuli, you might be able to withstand succumbing to the lure of distraction, allowing you to stay more keenly focused on the meaningful aspects of life, without getting derailed.

If you find that you are unable to disengage in the distractions of life on your own, you may need a little help from your friends (a coach, counselor or consultant) to break the addiction and resume your life and experience long term satisfaction and happiness.

You can do this.

Your best life is waiting for you.