Choosing Between Desirable Wants and Obvious Needs

Choosing between ones immediate needs and desirable wants might be quite a tedious task especially among teenagers

By: Tosin Osunbanjo

Editors note: Choosing between one's immediate needs and a desirable wants sometimes might be very disturbing, sometimes it takes us sleepless nights to decide our needs in line with our little budget and we cant rule out sometimes that we make the most awkward of choices and it definitely hurts, I hope as you read this, you can finally start making smart choices -  Shojobi Ife.

''It said in life, the things that matters seem not important and the ones that are important do not seem to matter. How true can this be?''

This question was asked by a friend and it got me thinking, and so, I decided to put it forward to another friend of mine who gave me a little insight on it and finally led me to an answer that is a 'YES '.

Most times, people tend to prepare their scale of preference in such a way that our wants comes before our needs. Economist term 'scale of preference 'as an order of priority' and so, the wants supersedes the needs which at the end of the day leads to errors that can't be corrected or rather resentment or more still, can result in total loss.

Let’s take a look at this from four different perspectives. Say, spiritual, social, psychological and physical aspect.

Foremost, Spiritual

According to the scripture, the book of Mathew 6:33 says 'But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you '. As believers, we are supposed to seek our eternal life first and try to live rightly but then, most of us go after the things of the world, we allow ourselves to be controlled by our flesh forgetting that 'life is a marketplace, we have only come to purchase and we will definitely go back to whence we came from’.

People tend to enjoy the world at the detriment of their eternal life, only but few who understand seek the kingdom first. So, I enjoin us to live according to the word of God kindly, so we won't perish because it is also recorded that those who reject knowledge shall perish.

Social Perspective

Over the years, I have observed that most people only tend to show love and care to those around them, or even those who have more than enough of love and care. My thoughts, though, however, we tend to neglect those outside our circles or the less privileged and with all sincerity, these are the sets of people who needs all the care and love the most, at least enough for the time they can get a quality one.

For instance, orphans need more of our love and attention because aside from the ones privileged to be in some of the orphanage homes, many of them don't have any educational background neither do they have basic necessities of life (food, clothing and shelter). So, let's try to extend our love and care to those who need it and let's expand our acquaintance.

Psychological

I think naturally human beings are made gullible and made wise through experience and that explains it all. Or then why will a young man in his age forgo to invest in his tomorrow just because he wants to ball today. Why?

Our cognitive experiences sharpen rationality in thoughts, and yeah you can argue that even with enough proven experiences, we all still make this mistake ones in a while. 

However, i opine that once we start thinking of that which matters and place them in esteem, then our tomorrow's problems will be solved from the mathematics of thoughts we made yesterday or now.

Lastly, the Physical Perspective

 In this aspect, 80 percent of us tend to place our wants over our needs. We always want to stay in trend and be in-line with what is happening around us most especially the youths. They want to wear expensive designer clothes or use trending gadgets that most times leave their pockets crying and often than not, they tend to forego the needs that really do matter to get their wants regardless of the present fact that this so called wants are insatiable.

 With the little explanation above, I believe I have been able to justify the answer to the question. Before I drop my pen, I will say to anyone reading this always to set our priorities in order of importance as life is all about making decisions.

I will like to say a big thank you to my friends, the one who sent the question and those who of them who took it out of their time to answer me when I forwarded the question to them, I wouldn't have thought of putting this into writing without you guys. God bless you

What do you think makes people forfeit there  wants in places of their needs?

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