Desires! Useful Wants or Basic Needs?

If desires are wanting, but rather not needs? If yes, why do we still have two different

terms? Therefore, they should not be the same. But they can be mutually exclusive or overlap

each other.

Defining the terms first to let you have a basic understanding. Desires are things that you

wish to have. Needs are the things essential for survival. Basic needs include food, air, water

and shelter etc. Wants are the things not essential for living but you hope to own, like junk

food, cars, and mansions etc.

It could be argued that the desires are some things you wish to improve your quality of life

and they should not include the basic needs. On the other hand, some say desires are all your

wishes, so you hope to have enough to fulfill your basic needs. Some may contend that there

is no such answer to conclude this. I believe the last one.

Nevertheless, desires should be subjective. They are produced from your heart, so they vary

among people. People have different personalities, situations or beliefs, so it depends on your

own interests, the environment and society. For example, you have a bag and it is old. But all

your friends have a new luxury bag. You want one also. Then this is your desire. Because you

have a bag already. In this case, desire is what you want but not your need.

Considering another case, a person is migrating to other countries. He cannot make any

friends and he feels lonely. He wants to have friends to chat with and a sense of belonging in

that country. This is his desire. But human beings live in a society. It is important for people

to connect in society. Relationships are also important to human mental wellbeing. So what

he wants is also his need to maintain his good wellbeing. In this case, desire is the want and

also the fundamental need. In addition, giving you a very common example. Money is

definitely something that you need because you can buy enough food or other important

needs. It is also what you want. When you have money, you can save it for future use. Your
desire is to have money to buy a house one day. You need money to fulfill your basic needs

and your large aim. So desire is both of them.

These cases show that desires are wants and they can be needs. There is no conclusion about

whether desires are wants or needs directly. It is important to consider what is your own case.

If desires, wants and needs are three circles, what are their relationships? They will be three

circles with overlapping parts like a triangle.

But how might our lives change if we do not fulfill our desires? Despite this, without

fulfilling any desires, we can still survive. But it is not beneficial to your wellbeings. Our

lifes will be boring and we live like robots. We should have enough knowledge to distinguish

our desires to positive and negative. We should pursue the beneficial one and avoid the

harmful one. Not all people believe in Hedonism which is a theory that promotes only

pleasure as valuable to life's.(Edward, 2019) But I believe all of you like pleasure more than

pain. It is worth the minor pain to enjoy the intense pleasure. (Hurka, 2011) Pleasure is

important to our well beings. The more pleasure we get, the better our health. We will be

motivated to work when you are in an excited moment. It is beneficial to our physical and

mental health.

However, if we continue our lives everyday to just meet our needs, our pleasure will

decline. Edward (2019) gives an example of a world containing only intense mindless

pleasures. It is surely a good world. However, it is only somewhat good but not a very good

or perfect world. The world with only pleasures is not excited. So we cannot just satisfy our

needs. We have to pursue some desires or wants. It you can fulfill them, you can get pleasure

surely. But when you pursue your desires, it must not be an overall success. Although you

have failed, you will get something to grow. You gain some knowledge of the bad things.

Besides, it can be painful to leave a memory in your brain and remind you not to do it a
second time. Your wellbeing will change while you are fulfilling your desires. To maintain

our well beings, fulfilling desires is what we need too.

Desires should be something more specific on wants or a longer aim. So it is not easily

affected by the environment and goes away. If you are fulfilling desires, you will try your

best to do it and not abandon them. Like your desire is losing weight, you should control

yourself. You should do exercise and eat healthy food but not junk food. You should keep

doing it until you reach your goals. If it is what you want, it will be easily affected. When

there is a lot of delicious junk food in front of you, you eat it. It means losing weight is your

want but not desire. Desires are matters you have a big wish and want to achieve. It can be

your future study or occupation or something else.

In conclusion, there are not such answers that desires mean wants or essentials needs

directly. They are kinda similar because they can feel the same in some situations. However,

it is important to fulfill useful desires and basic needs to maintain a good wellbeing.

Reference

1. Hurka, T. (2011). The Best Things in Life. Oxford University Press.

2. Edward N. (2019). Hedonism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/hedonism/

3. Difference Between Want and Desire. (2015)

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-want-and-vs-desire/