The concept of needing and wanting something is prevalent in our everyday decisions, no matter how significant or insignificant they may seem. The interrelatedness of these two aspects of a healthy mentality is very complex, which is why it is easy to become a victim of solely needing something or solely wanting something. Let’s address a few prominent dimensions of everyday life and how we can understand the connection between needing and wanting something:

Relationships

Wanting someone, needing someone, or a mixture of both can define the success of a relationship. The most unhealthy attitude out of all three is to solely need someone. This is a disastrous mentality and many of us have been through phases where solely needing someone has infiltrated our emotional success. This attitude is a reflection of a lack of self-confidence and self-respect and it can serve as a great trigger warning to wake up and understand that a relationship is not about needing someone. Rather, it is about understanding what you yourself can first offer and evaluating if a potential partner can complement, rather than add to, what you bring to the table. Now, the other extreme which seems like the most healthy option is to want someone for solely wanting someone.

This is a great attitude - to want someone changes the dynamics of the entire situation by establishing that you understand what you like and do not like. However, one can easily fall into a horrible situation if they cannot deal with wanting something and not getting any reciprocation. You must never end at “I need that person, I need that person!” or “I want that person! I want that person!”. The situation is way more complex, which is why the approach of wanting someone else while understanding to what extent you need that person is essential to power through even the most testing times. Everything may or may not go as planned, and if it doesn’t, thinking about how you can’t live without someone else will only hurt you even more.

The best, most healthy attitude to possess is that yes, you want a significant other, and at your present moment in life, you need this significant other in order to plan for your future and in order to extend your happiness beyond where it is now - but that is where your need stops. You don’t need this significant other in order to advance - you need this significant other in order to better yourself and extend your happiness, and you can do this through various other means. Not only do you love your significant other because you want him or her, but you also understand the extend to where you need him or her. This maintains the right emotional balance for both partners, where you are not entirely dependent on your significant other and you can offer, without any fear of the unpredictability of the future, exactly who you are and what you want to become.

Grades

For a college student, this is probably the most applicable situation for needing and wanting something. Out of personal experience, needing a grade for solely needing a grade can really pressure one’s thought process, displacing an individual out of a comfort zone and into a war zone to get the highest grade possible. On the other hand, simply wanting a grade for solely wanting a grade infiltrates one’s thought process with why you want a certain grade and serves as a distractor from actually doing what can earn you that grade. The mediating threshold that should give the best results is understand that yes, to an extent, you want that grade, but the only way you’ll motivate yourself is to understand that you primarily need it as a stepping stone and as a personal check. You want that grade because it will serve as a check to explain to you what your strengths and weaknesses are, and this is why you primarily need it in order to hone yourself as an individual. Of course, you do need the grade in order to stand out in a competitive atmosphere, and understanding why you need it will introduce the idea of competitiveness to you. But the only way to get better is to compete with your own self by letting your grades serve as evaluations. Yes, get frustrated, but not solely because you need to get an A for that transcript, which you probably do - but more importantly, you need to get that A because you want to improve yourself and your goal is to strive and eliminate as many weaknesses as possible. If this is your goal, then you can slowly change high grades into something you optimistically want rather than something you desperately need. There is clearly a psychological relationship between needing and wanting something, and the motivation lies in understanding how you need a certain spark because you want to improve.

Personality Sharpening

While I do believe in the concept of, “I want to get better”, I don’t believe that that is simply enough to push yourself and be better. There is a subtle component of “I need to get better”, but it must be re-directed and understood in the right manner in order to maximize internal potential. When you want to become better at controlling your anger, or disciplining yourself, you actually inherently need to get better. You need to get better to an extent, though. You do not need to get better because you have to get better or else you’ll just suck - you need to get better so that you can build upon already wanting to get better. You need to get better so that you can motivate yourself to complete the present task and move on to want to get better at something else. To internalize the idea of needing something under the umbrella of wanting something can re-direct this commonly pejorative 'need' into a type of motivation dedicated to progression.

You want to build a house, but you also need to build the house so you can move on from brick to brick, and eventually want something than can make the house more personal and tailored to your needs. By simply wanting the house or needing the house, you are imposing your intrinsic motivation and personal capabilities onto the house. You should never invest yourself and your emotions into something else (simply needing or wanting). Rather, you should always invest yourself and your emotions into something that will make you constantly be in competition with yourself and this can only be done by grasping the idea that yes, you do need something, but it’s because you want to be better than who you were yesterday. This attitude is universal and you will not be emotionally tied to a certain situation for very long if the only person you want to compete with is yourself. You will always find ways to improve yourself by understanding the threshold of needing something in order to always fruitfully want something.

Internalize this quote:

“To an extent, I need it because I want it - and I want it because I am constantly in competition with myself, and that is process in which I cannot afford to get left behind.”