What are some needs and wants in life? What are my needs and wants?
Understanding the concept of needs and wants.
The concept of needs and wants is related to a human being. Therefore, needs are essential to human existence, and wants are the pure desires humans think of.
There is a vast difference between both needs and wants. This article will help you understand the whole concept in-depth if you are unaware.
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What are needs and wants?
Needs vs. wants definition.
A “wants” refers to a strong desire to possess or do something. The term “needs” is defined as a lack of the means of subsistence and represents things we must have to survive, such as food, water, and shelter.
Difference between needs and wants with examples
What is the difference between need and want?
The main difference between need and want is that “want” is a desire to possess or do something that is not essential for a person’s life, while needs are critical rather than just desirable. This is because wants and needs are economic terminologies, but life needs are essential, while “wants” are something to wish for.
The difference between needs and wants is that needs are necessary for an organism to live a healthy life, and wants are wishes or desires for something. For example, needs are water and food and wants are a house, material things, goals, and desires.
153 Needs and Wants Examples
| Need as necessary | Want as desire |
|---|---|
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Ability to Love Unconditionally |
| Aesthetic Needs | Access to Nature |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Adventure |
| Temperate Environment | Air Conditioning |
| Air | Air Purifiers |
| Shelter | Apartment |
| Aesthetic Needs | Art |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Avoidance of Criticism |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Awards & Recognition |
| Sleep | Bed |
| Play & Movement | Bicycle |
| Cognitive Needs | Books |
| Clothes | Boots |
| Hydration | Bottled Water |
| Cognitive Needs | Caffeine |
| Play & Movement | Car |
| Food | Cheese |
| Safety | Civility |
| Air | Clean Air |
| Sleep | Clean Environment |
| Hydration | Coffee |
| Hydration | Cold Drinks |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Community |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Comradery |
| Shelter | Condominium |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Confidence |
| Food | Convenience Food |
| Cognitive Needs | Conversation |
| Aesthetic Needs | Coolness |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Countersignaling |
| Aesthetic Needs | Creative Expression |
| Cognitive Needs | Cultivating Intelligence |
| Cognitive Needs | Cultivating Talents |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Culture |
| Play & Movement | Cycling Roads |
| Cognitive Needs | Debate |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Degrees & Certifications |
| Cognitive Needs | Development |
| Hydration | Diet Soft Drinks |
| Cognitive Needs | Education |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Emotional Expression |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Employment |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Engagement |
| Cognitive Needs | Entertainment |
| Air | Environmental Regulations |
| Play & Movement | Exercise |
| Play & Movement | Exercise Equipment |
| Cognitive Needs | Experimentation |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Family |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Fashion |
| Food | Fast Food |
| Food | Fine Food |
| Hydration | Flavored Coffees |
| Cognitive Needs | Free Expression |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Freedom & Independence |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Freedom of Expression |
| Play & Movement | Freedom of Movement |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Freedom of Speech |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Friendship |
| Aesthetic Needs | Gardening |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Grades |
| Food | Grains |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Growth |
| Play & Movement | Gym Membership |
| Safety | Healthcare |
| Temperate Environment | Heating |
| Belonging & Connectedness | High Salary |
| Belonging & Connectedness | High Status Brands |
| Belonging & Connectedness | High Status Friends |
| Play & Movement | Highways |
| Hydration | Hot Drinks |
| Sleep | Hotel |
| Air | House Far From Pollution Sources |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Humility |
| Cognitive Needs | Information |
| Safety | Investments |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Involvement |
| Hydration | Juice |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Justice for Others |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Justice for Yourself |
| Safety | Justice System |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Kindness |
| Safety | Laws |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Life Experience |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Love |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Mastery |
| Food | Meat |
| Cognitive Needs | Media |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Memberships |
| Cognitive Needs | Mentors |
| Cognitive Needs | Movies |
| Aesthetic Needs | Musical Instruments |
| Aesthetic Needs | Night Clubs |
| Safety | Norms |
| Clothes | Pants |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Participation |
| Cognitive Needs | Peer Review |
| Safety | Pension |
| Aesthetic Needs | Performance Art |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Philosophy |
| Safety | Policing Services |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Popularity |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Profession |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Promotions |
| Safety | Property |
| Play & Movement | Public Space |
| Sleep | Quiet Environment |
| Clothes | Raincoat |
| Play & Movement | Reasonable Work Hours |
| Play & Movement | Recess at School |
| Play & Movement | Recreational Facilities |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Redemption & Forgiveness |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Religion |
| Cognitive Needs | Research |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Resilience |
| Food | Restaurant |
| Play & Movement | Right to Play |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Risk Taking |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Saving Face |
| Safety | Savings |
| Belonging & Connectedness | School |
| Safety | Security System |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Self-Awareness |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Self-Fulfillment |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Shared Experience |
| Cognitive Needs | Shared Meaning |
| Clothes | Shoes |
| Clothes | Slippers |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Social Feedback |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Social Signaling |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Social Status |
| Clothes | Socks |
| Hydration | Soft Drinks |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Spirituality |
| Play & Movement | Sports |
| Play & Movement | Sports Equipment |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Stoicism |
| Aesthetic Needs | Street Fashion |
| Aesthetic Needs | Style |
| Food | Sugar |
| Cognitive Needs | Television |
| Food | Toaster Oven |
| Play & Movement | Toys |
| Cognitive Needs | Training |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Travel |
| Self-actualization & Transcendence | Unaffectedness |
| Belonging & Connectedness | Understanding |
| Play & Movement | Vacations |
| Food | Vegetables |
| Hydration | Water |
| Play & Movement | Weekends |
| Play & Movement | Wrestling & Play Fighting |
Examples of Needs
- Physiological Needs: Food, water, shelter, sleep, etc.
- Safety Needs: A sense of self-security, job security, health security, safe environment, etc.
- Belongingness and Love Need Strong bonds and love relationships.
- Esteem Needs: Self-confidence, respect, good reputation, etc.
- Self-actualization: Morality, spontaneity, and acceptance.
Then comes the secondary needs of a human being. They can be anything necessary according to one’s health or physical requirements. For example, if you are obese, exercising regularly is your need. Without it, you might not survive longer. If you are an asthmatic patient, then an inhaler is your need. So, in this way, needs are defined based on the physical requirement of one’s health.
If we talk about which comes first, needs or wants, the needs are the person’s priority.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs represents a theory that states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual’s behavior: safety, physiological, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
Examples of Wants
The wants are something that is purely your desire. It can be something abstract or concrete as well. The wishes are not necessarily part of your daily routines. And you can live without them easily. Needs and wants cannot be the same for everyone. It varies from person to person. For example, wants are what you like or desire; maybe you like to travel a lot, which is unnecessary. If you don’t travel, you cannot feel any difference and manage without it.
Maybe you like ice cream or sweets, or perhaps you want spicy junk food. But if you stop eating them, you can survive—and this will not affect you.
- Identify your basic needs.
- Examine your wants from time to time because it varies with time.
- List the things according to the most important, meaningful, and least important.
- Track down the expenses of your needs and wants.
- Create your budget for a month.
- Spend as per your needs and wants.
The link between needs and wants
There is a link between needs and wants. The needs are in place but can be linked to needs. You can choose what your needs are. For example, if exercising is your need, it can be selected according to your likeness.
For example, maybe you like to jog, walk, or go to the gym. How you fulfill your needs can be altered according to what you want. You must be in a mess if you don’t know about your life’s different needs and wants. Knowing the difference can lead you towards a decent lifestyle, whereas you are wasting your time and money regularly if you don’t know the difference.
Needs versus wants for kids.
Every kid’s needs represent all the essential things they must have to survive or develop as a person, such as shelter, food, love, water, home, understanding, and education. However, “wants” represent their desire to have something more in their lives, such as ice cream, dolls, sweets, sneakers, etc.
Let us see this:
Is a car a need or a want?
The car represents a want because humans don’t need to survive. You can develop as a person without a car, and you can eat, drink, and live without a car. However, the vehicle is achievable for ordinary people in the 21st century.
Choose between your wants and needs.
Wisely, choose your wants and needs, where you have to spend money, and where you have to make compromises.
Most people think that having a car, shelter (home), water, and food are the only things they need. Of course, those can be easily fulfilled. But they don’t know the importance of the time and money spent on their wants (desires).
Always love what you have.
Always try to appreciate what you have and love it as long it belongs to you. It could be anything. When you want to buy those things you cannot afford, it becomes pretty easy to appreciate those you already have.
Are our needs and wants opposite to each other?
Not necessarily!
It differs and depends on every person’s mood and taste. It is typically unnecessary that needs are opposite to desires or wants, but it’s in your hands. If you want, you can make your needs your wants. You can’t choose your needs, but you can change your heart to meet them.
Budgeting your needs and wants.
One of the prime challenges of economic development is the awareness of the actual characteristics between want and need and the ability to appropriately assess them.
When you know your needs and wants, you can clearly visualize managing your budget plan accordingly. This is essential for living a decent life and saving money.
For example, middle-aged students earning part-time keep complaining that they don’t have enough money or savings. This is the scenario or result of not keeping track and recording their expenses.
However, you will hear on the street very often sentences such as, “I want money, and I need it now,” “I want to sell my house, but it needs work,” or “I want to buy a business and need a loan,” “I don’t want braces, but I need them,” etc.
The solution is easy:
You need to commit to your long-term goals and build the life you want!
Your wants – someone else’s needs.
It would help if you remembered that even what you might have in your life, such as your desires or wants, could be someone else’s needs. For example, you could want to have a meal at any time, but maybe it is the need for homeless people. Who need it badly but cannot afford to eat it.
Your kids have proper essential meals, including seafood, milk, and proteins, but some kids might not have these meals; although it’s their needs, they cannot afford them.
Routine desires or wants
Daily wants aren’t essential or needed; nevertheless, we are so entrenched in our regular lives that we do not want to think about life without them. In their homes, they use desktop computers or iMacs for typing purposes. They have a larger screen and clear view, and they are set up at a contented counter. They also use laptops when they are away from home.
This might have become their daily wants that they must have been addicted to. Sometimes, you can not leave your daily routine wants in different scenarios even if you’re going to.
If someone uses a smartphone, which has become everyone’s need, people think it is only a desire and a waste of money for a decade. However, things develop from time to time, and people adapt them to their needs…. which eventually become their habits, and habits turn into needs—for example, smartphones.
Just think for a moment! When can you use the smartphone that you are using right now? Can you use it for one upcoming year or the next four?
When technology evolves with innovation, old technologies are dumped because they are useless and cannot be upgraded to new innovative software. This compromise ends up with the intelligent machine you are using right away. You can not easily downgrade or eliminate this from your life, even if you do not want to; you must be a part of this society. Plan your life, lifestyle, and work; you will define your needs and daily wants.
What are my needs and wants?
Needs in life!
There are possibly uncountable wants in my life, but specifically, I require some basic needs to spend a life, and without them, I could not survive. So here are the following things.
Why is it necessary to know your needs and wants?
It is crucial to know what is right and wrong so similarly. Understanding the pivotal role of knowledge of needs and wants is also significant.
It will help you adjust your monthly plans and feed your savings account more actively. Many things in your use are merely your wants. Some things are of high importance in needs, and some are of low importance in wants. The same goes for wants; many things are only your least essential and least valuable wants. If you ignore them, it can be more convenient to follow up with the same method for choosing your needs.
For example, having a car is your need, but updating your vehicle to Benz is a lame need (unnecessary). As discussed, needs vary from person to person; it could be excessive for an ordinary citizen.
Some extraordinary people in their lives, like Hollywood stars or singers or famous personalities, are expected to have such things. These could be their needs, not wants.
What is the difference between economic needs and wants?
Economic needs represent all necessary processes for survival, such as transportation, agriculture, and food. On the other hand, monetary wants mean something a person would like to have but is unnecessary.
Economic needs and wants can sometimes be challenging to understand. For example, transportation, food, and the internet are needs in the modern world, but many years ago, the internet and transportation were only desires (wants).
Role of needs, wants, and demands in marketing management
Needs wants, and demands have applications in marketing because they help marketers decide the products they need to offer. In marketing, people identify needs, wants, and demands and then provide products to satisfy customer needs, wants, or demands.
Consumer needs and wants in marketing represent a desire to get functional utility out of an offering.
Do you have to cut off all your wants?
This is unlike almost removing the whole thing “fun” from your life. It is about mining through the highlands of those things in our lives, but we don’t need them as we thought when we wanted to buy them—many décor stuff, etc. We have taken them for granted and now profoundly realize that they never add the value we once thought.
It’s not about leaving your wants altogether and compromising to the extreme that you don’t feel good about it but making it less so you can afford a simple yet elegant life. What will happen if you demand that somebody stop using their cell phones? They might be able to adjust to society. But, on the other hand, it might end up in a colossal blunder.
Goal:
Your primary goal should be your priorities—the things you value most in life. You should spare some money from your wallet to purchase the desired items, which can be your needs, daily wants, or fun.
1- Donations
Many people waste their money on unnecessary wants. Still, if we can conclude why we should identify our needs and wants, we can save enough money to serve others without getting anything as a reward—just for humanity.
We can donate to those suffering, maybe because of civil war or perhaps they are refugees. We can send our small amount of money and big love to those African kids who need a meal for the day or for their survival.
We can save a lot of money that we spend on lame desires. Maybe it would be a small amount for one person, but we all think we can save up to a considerable amount to help many people.
It is not essential to whom you are donating—black or white, Muslim or Christian, men or women—as long as you are helping them. Our sense of humanity bound us to be there for each other. We can not and should not ignore other humans who require our help.
One day, this society will be a place where people can live with the dignity of humans. Maybe one day, where we live, we will be in chaos; you can not be sure of anything in this world. Anytime anything could happen. Those who have taken the initiative to donate to help others will return to that society. This could be a society, a state, or an individual who can start and think like this to use the small amount of their savings or expenses, which they tend to spend on their wants. And spend that money to help those who are suffering.
2- Savings
People can save a lot of money when they need it, whether small or large; they can use their savings first in an emergency.
The money they save from not spending on such lame things, which are their wants, can only add to their help. Moreover, by doing this, they don’t have to ask others for money in an emergency.
3- You can break the wheel.
When you save money to buy an expensive Rado, you turn your enemy into the most robust beast. Like this, you feed the brand mafia when you spend on brand stuff, buy them just for fun, and use them to show off. However, you can break this wheel when you stop purchasing costly things because of your wants and desires.
Stop wasting your money on these things that are offered under the name of an expensive brand, rather than that you can buy simple items from your country’s local market at the best affordable rates. This will add the money into your account, not to those brands’ accounts; those businesses flourish on your money because of your interest and attraction to their brand’s name.
You can save all of your money by choosing wisely where to spend it. From the start, it will directly lead you to the whole story to know your wants and needs. After that, you can decide easily.
Difference between want and needs
The difference between want and needs is that needs represent good feelings, joy, and fulfillment when we are doing or having something, while want represents our desire and predictions that we will like some things when we get them or experience them. So, “wants” are based on desire and guessing, while “likes” are based on joyful experiences.
Difference between wants and needs in a relationship
In a relationship, the only “needs” you have are a loving relationship, the need to create a family, or the need for strong bonds. Anything else represents “wants,” such as “I want you to be rich,” “I want you to be like this,” “I want you to be smart,” “I want to make progress together with you,” etc.
Physical needs and wants are the same. While the human physical need is a requirement for human existence, the human want is something that is humanly desired. Except for love relationships and primary physical contact, everything else is “wants.”
As we said in the beginning, the article “wants” refers to a strong desire to possess or do something, and in a relationship, we can see a lot of “wants.” However, essential “needs” are just a few examples, and all of those must be important for you to survive, to be you!
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