“I make myself rich by making my wants few.” —Henry David Thoreau
“Words are important,” they say. Indeed, there is power in them. That is why you find political campaigns and brands working hard to fine-tune and repeat specific ones every chance they get.
Words have the power to change our thinking, our attitude, and our actions.
And few words carry more power over our lives than the word “need.”
Think about it. Once we call something a need (whether aloud or just in our head), it has power over us. A need is something we have to have.
Once something becomes a need in our life, we stop questioning it. We never consider removing it. We replace it as soon as it breaks. We budget around it. We cut out other things in our lives before we’d consider giving it up. Sometimes we work longer hours to pay for it. And nobody is allowed to question it—not ourselves or others.
I think that is why advertisers work so hard to convince us their products are “needs.”
Did you know that less than 10% of engagement rings in the 1940s included a diamond, but today that number is almost 90%? The change happened in the late 1940s when a jewelry company intentionally began marketing diamonds as a symbol of forever love. Once they convinced the public that a marriage needs a diamond, they won.
That is why it matters so much what we put in the category. And why we should work hard to not confuse need with want.
We all have legitimate needs. We have needs for survival: water, food, shelter, clothing. We could probably add education, healthcare, transportation, among others. Then we have needs that help us grow into the people we were created to be: relationships, tools, opportunities, and resources for personal growth.
I would never argue that deciphering the difference between a need and a want is easy to do.
But I do believe we have a terrible tendency to confuse conveniences and luxuries with needs. And when we do, we pay the price in two ways:
First, our baseline standard of living becomes inflated. Each generation’s luxuries become the next generation’s minimum. The cost of a normal life keeps rising because our definition of need keeps expanding. And many of us find ourselves working harder every year just to afford this new baseline lifestyle.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds politically. But in America today, the news is filled with reports of an affordability crisis. At the same time, we live in bigger homes than a generation ago, own more vehicles than ever before, eat out more than ever before, pay more for streaming television than ever before, and bet more on sports than ever.
I’m not contending that some people aren’t struggling to afford their needs. But it is important to realize our baseline standard of living and definition of need have inflated quite a bit over the years.
Because when everything feels necessary, nothing feels cuttable.
And marketers lean into this strategy at every turn. They have an uncanny ability to take something brand-new that we’ve never used before, convince us that we want it, and then convince us that we need it. We move from novelty to convenience to necessity at breakneck speed.
The second price we pay when we confuse conveniences and luxuries with needs is that we lose opportunities to grow.
In his book The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter describes something he calls “comfort creep.” The more comfort we add to our lives, the lower our threshold for discomfort becomes. Things that once felt normal, like a short walk, a meal made from scratch, or a few minutes of waiting with nothing to do, start to feel like hardships.
This happens when we stop seeing a convenience as a convenience and start calling it a need. A convenience is something we’re glad to have but understand to be a luxury. A need is something we can’t function without.
When we move a convenience back to where it belongs, it loses its power over us. We can still enjoy it. We can still use it. But we hold it loosely. If money gets tight, it’s an easy place to cut. If it breaks, life goes on. And when we do have it, we can receive it with gratitude rather than expectation.
Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that we should go without all modern conveniences. Many of them are a real benefit to our lives.
In fact, I’m writing this article in an air-conditioned room right now, drinking water that has been filtered in a pitcher. What I’m saying is that we should be careful what we call a need and try to use the word sparingly. There is flexibility and opportunity for growth when we do.
So take an honest look at the things in your life you consider essential. Which ones are truly needs? And which ones have you simply grown used to?
Because when you look around, you might start to see things differently. In fact, here are 12 modern conveniences many of us now consider needs (most of which barely existed 25 years ago):
- Air fryers
- Bottled water
- Single-serve coffee makers
- Smartwatches and Fitness trackers
- Wireless earbuds
- Meal kits
- Tablets for kids
- Robot vacuums
- Energy drinks
- Food delivery apps
- Free Shipping memberships
- Artificial intelligence
The word “need” is powerful. Let’s save it for the things that deserve it.
Source: www.becomingminimalist.com…