Arindam GhosalWe are driven by wants, innumerable of them. Term it as greed or need, any want forms the pre-requisite for our being. Our mere existence is defied in the absence of wants. Anyone is not content with whatever life has to offer. There is a mad rush on to gather more and more. Multiple factors go on to form the cluster of wants in our minds. Some of those are:
1. Monotony
Monotony of anything that is already there in our hands creates the need to look for a new one. It could be a mobile phone, a watch or a pen that one might be using for few days, months or years and suddenly decides to scrap it just out of boredom despite its usable condition.
2. Social Status Pressure
Show off is a potential factor behind our wants. In the lure of creating impressions and establishing social status within friends and relatives we tend to go all-out and demand for more. That often results in the loss of our original identity.
3. Peer Pressure
Competition or peer pressure instigates us to get more and more. The knack of striving for more as a student or a professional is certainly a positive trait. That leads to excellent results. Rivalry often forces someone to take erratic decisions – purchasing a new age car just because the next door neighbor got a high class one.
4. Easy Finance
Off late, our purchasing power has increased manifold. Highly paid jobs have mushroomed, smart payment plans (credit cards, instalments) have been introduced and there is hardly any pinch in our pockets to afford multiple identical products, although they could be unnecessary.
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5. Ease Of Shopping
With so many options on offer anyone is bound to want more. Starting from a pin to an airplane, there are choices galore. With the advent of online shopping websites and delivery at doorsteps, the ease of wanting and getting something has become a habit.
6. Passionate Wants
Passion, too, drives our wants. Hobbies like philately and match box collection would go waste without the desire to add more to the pool. There is a never ending demand for antiques and paintings throughout.
Economics lays down the concepts of necessities, comforts and luxuries, but we hardly bifurcate between them when it comes to fulfilling our wants. No one is ready to settle for less. And why should someone be? Anyone without wants or desires is believed to have lost interest in life. Scarcity or abundance of any object defines the demand for it.
It’s apparent that wants are directly linked to minds and emotions. There is a charm in getting whatever we need; it’s like winning a challenge. In the act of fulfilling our wants, we tend to compromise on certain fronts, some of them being quite invaluable and can never be quantified in terms of money. Personal choices can never be influenced, and it is entirely on one to analyze situations and make wise decisions while accomplishing our wants, avoiding wrong choices.
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