Overview – Needs and Wants

Swapna Mirashi

Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970)

The subject of needs and wants is often brought about as an important part of financial literacy/ education. While researching and developing content for effective education of the totally new/ uninitiated in the area of personal finance, this topic got me thinking.

I’ve been working for last 10-12 years in the area as a consultant, trainer and writer, mainly for children, youth and rural population. Not only did I study the significance of the technical side of personal finance to people’s lives but also the psychology behind it all. The more I read and the more I observed around, the more I became convinced that the objectives of entire financial literacy program for an individual can be achieved through a thorough understanding of a single topic – understanding your needs, as an individual, as a family, as a company or community or even as a nation or humanity at large. And it it my hypothesis that I wish to test and document in this blog that this fundamental understanding of needs and differentiating it from the various wants will be the key to all our problems as we will get better at;

1. decision making

2. prioritizing

3. choosing

4. Empathizing – understanding others

Tall claims, as it may sound – if tested and confirmed, will provide a simple solution to the worries of today!

Comments