The Cost of More

I want things, things, and more things.

From a very young age, you’re taught to have goals, to dream big. You’re made to recite your chosen occupation or career path, and to give your all to achieve it. When you grow into an age of reason, you might choose a different path, but something remains constant: things. I could argue that for the majority of us, the motivation to wake up every day to indulge in our day-to-day activities stems from the need to possess things. Think of your dream car, or your dream house. Those are things.

Over the past year, I’ve trained myself to look at life through a need vs want lens. I don’t ask myself the question literally every time, but it has helped me manage my expectations, finances, and goals better. On the question of how much is enough, I could take two paths, one being greed (topic for another day), or I could take the happiness path. I choose the latter for today’s piece.

Happiness

Here’s a question for you, what is your definition of happiness?

Happiness goes hand in hand with satisfaction, the feeling of having enough, or at least, not lacking.

Would you say you are happy in life?

Needs vs Wants, and How Both Affect Happiness

I’d like you to take a minute to think, and perhaps note down your needs and wants. A need is a necessity, something that you can’t live without, like fuel for an engine. A want on the other hand, is something you simply desire. A want could be something that adds value to your life in one way or another, like a vehicle.

When you’re feeling dissatisfied with how much you have, what position you hold at your job, or what car you drive, for example, you deny yourself of happiness, whatever your definition of it is. You constantly feel the urge to do more to achieve satisfaction. You might find yourself saying, “I just need to buy this thing, and everything will be fine.”

When we mistake wants for needs, we set ourselves up for chronic dissatisfaction. We become stuck in a cycle of chasing happiness through accumulation, forgetting that satisfaction, and perhaps happiness was accessible when our needs were already met. You don’t appreciate your progress because the moment one goal is achieved, another appears. And if you pause to appreciate it, you feel a twinge of guilt, as though you’ve settled.

So, when can you say you’re satisfied? When can you say you’ve achieved it? When is it enough to finally say you’ve done it?

My Search for Happiness

As of writing this, I’m trying to figure out what happiness is to me, what I need and don’t need to achieve it, and how important it is that I achieve happiness. Many are the times that I stop amidst facing challenges, mostly financial, to think of how much what I’m striving for means to me, why, and how much I need to achieve the goal.

I’ve thought of packing up and travelling to an isolated part of the country for some few months to see if I could find happiness in not trying, in being satisfied with what I need, which is already in my reach.

My upbringing, like that of many, has taught me to aim for the sky, to strive for more, to not be satisfied with the little. This thins down the line between laziness and satisfaction. I often wonder whether I’d be simply lazy or just unwilling to leave my comfort zone, or whether I would’ve cracked the code to happiness.

I don’t want things. I don’t want huge tracks of land, a fleet of cars, properties, and magnificent structures. I don’t need them! The biggest gift I think I could give myself in my lifetime would be happiness, not material wealth or status.

Ask yourself: are you striving for what you truly want, or what you think you should want?

Categories: Lifestyle, Philosophy