Little article for the upcoming edition of The Voice...enjoy
I was instantly given 2,350,000,000 results (!). The majority of these responses were questions like "What do I need to be happy?", there was information about crossing the US/Canada border and tons of quizzes, my favourite one being called "Do You Need Therapy?"
All in all this google search was useless and apart from discovering I may need therapy, it was a total waste of time.
Anyways...Today the word 'need' has become terribly misused.
We use 'need' to justify.
It comforts us because we can insert it in a sentence just before the thing we are going to buy to make sure it's okay. "I need a new _____", "I'm going out because I need ________".
How close are these statements to reality? Or how true are these statements?
What do we really need? I suppose the answer is relative to who you ask and I guess it's equally relative to when you ask them. But if we get down to the basic human question of "What do we need as humans?", then I guess the answer to what do you need is relative to what you want to be...
For basic humans, we want to be alive.
Living.
Not dead.
To accomplish this continued state of living, we would need oxygen, clean water, and food. That's it really.
But it's really not it. Ask anybody who has these three basic things what they need and you won't hear food, water, oxygen.
Maybe it's a Canadian or North American thing where we are constantly creating new needs for ourselves.
I do it all the time. I was just looking at new hiking packs and chose to save the $100 after asking, "do I need this?" Yes it's more comfortable, yes it is newer, yes it is bigger, but do I need it? Naw.
I want to put a bigger speaker system in my car so my bass can be bumpier. It's about $200 which is affordable. But do I need it? Nope.
Honestly, after our basic needs our met, what more do we actually need?
Not too much.
I'll use myself as an example. I'm a 21 year old who's married. I live in the North East end of the city in a basement apartment.
I need food and water and oxygen. My lungs are in good working order, so oxygen is taken care of. Water comes out of the taps that are included in my rent each month, so that's taken care of. My wife and I require jobs that generate income in order to purchase healthy food. We each have jobs at opposite ends of the city. I now have two jobs at opposite ends of the city.
We have a car. I think we could probably say we need this to get to our jobs to get the money to get the food to survive. And we wear clothes so we can keep our jobs considering they require us to have a clean criminal record.
So we have
- home/shelter
- income
- car
- food
- water
- clothes
- +
Now the plus category is stuff. I say stuff because really, that's all it is. Furniture, electronics, books, kitchenware. It's all stuff. It's stuff that we continue to acquire and upgrade and dispose of and repeat! Recently I have begun to think more about our stuff and have been seriously considering living in an RV or something similar. If you ask my wife, that will never happen.
In thinking of my "needs", I am always brought back to a little photograph on my fridge. It's a special photograph. It is a photograph of a little boy named David Ederson Paraguay Quispe. He's a little Peruvian kid we picked out of a bunch. He is our Compassion Child and the money that invisibly comes out of our bank each month provides him with clean water, food, education, medicine and other necessities for a kid.
I think of people like David and I think of families like his and I think about the things I claim to need, and I get a little bit upset. Maybe it's more uneasy than upset. But I start to feel crappy. I mean here I am, typing on a $2000 computer what could've been written on a piece of 3 ring lined.
My life is easy and convenient and abundant. When I put myself beside David, I am too rich. I have too much stuff. How do I know?
I know because my 'need' for a new computer
and my 'need' for nice shoes
and my 'need' for a new DVD
and my 'need' for another book
and my 'need' for a big car
and my fake, callous, selfish "NEEDS" are just silly, self centred wants in disguise.
My wants have mingled with my needs and become like them. And now my "needs" are more important than David's and my "needs" have allowed me to let others go without. And not even others across the world but even others in my own city.
Now a few hours ago I posted on facebook, "Quick! Don't Think! just answer this question, "what do you need?". I had 6 responses from 4 people and the one that stood out was one from an old friend from college, his response was "first thing that popped into my head when I read your question was "Jesus!"".
And I agree.
We all need Jesus.
I need Jesus to remind me that others don't have what I take for granted and others NEED to come before my luxuries.
After all, there is one who will say "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
So ask yourself,
"What do I need?"
"What do I want?"
"At what cost?"
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