Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wants and Needs

Father will buy only ‘what I need’, and I’ll pay for ‘what I want’ (You GanGui – Author)


I randomly flipped through an author named You GanGui’s article. It touched on issues related to the people nowadays, which is ‘desire’.

In a competitive economical society, we must educate our children about ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. Which also known as Value Judgment.

The ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ mentioned in the article, was the author’s intention to educate the daughter about such philosophy of life. Things we need are food and drink as a daily requirement to maintain a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, things we want could be anything based on a desire. It could have been a pair of new fashionable shoes, or even a dream car.

The author was reminding his daughter that he’ll pay for what she ‘needs’, but she’ll have to buy what she ‘wants’ by herself. Without being born in a rich family, the father had to educate his daughter to appreciate what she gets.

The author added that money is a pass that allows us to live in a more comfortable life. Or else, we’d be earning mere paper and the figure would mean nothing but mere numbers. Plus, all the work would be so tiring and pressuring. We could never get satisfied of our desire.

In life, it’s often that we do not ‘need’ too much, but ‘want’ too much.

Days ago, the author received a birthday card from his daughter. In the card, she reminded her father to stay healthy and happy. In addition, she asked the father not to work too tensed earning money as she will use and eat wisely without wasting.

It seems that she’d learnt ‘mathematics’ knowing that when we get a positive figure when we subtract the amount of spending out of income, we could truly live without so much worries and hard work.

The author began to think. Why are the people working so hard to be a slave of money? Could it be that their parents had given them too much? If this is what’s happening, then the children might already been used to being satisfied without giving a single effort.

A friend’s son got married recently. I could remember the luxurious wedding that seems fascinating. The parents were showing off and told us that his son bought a wedding ring that costs 150 million dollars from Tiffany (one of the branded jewellery shop)!

But hang on… I just realized that his son never went out for work, how did he get the money for the ring then? For a person who had never worked, would he even know how hard it is to earn the amount of 150 million dollars? What if the parents were gone for one day? Where could he look for other chances so that he’d get a reward out of nothing? From his credit card?

Sometimes it doesn’t always turn out well, when we’ve given too much to our children…





Postscript:

If you ask me, I’d agree with the author. Being born in a poor family, I understand how hard it is to struggle in everyday life. I used to have a lot of things that I wished to have, but my family’s background had taught me a principle “I’ll discuss with the family to get what I need, and I’ll find my own way to get what I want.” I learnt not to waste anything I get ever since I was a kid.

A famous philosopher, Socrates described people that couldn’t bear to control themselves from their desire as a ‘leaking barrel’. As we pour milk into a leaking barrel, it’ll all eventually go to waste. If we never pour milk into the barrel with frequently, we could never make it to fill the barrel up. Then, we’d begin to feel worried. ‘Desire’ is like a hole. When it gets bigger and bigger, we could never have filled the barrel up. Likewise, we could never get satisfied out of these desires. People like this are easily manipulated by desire, which Socrates would call as ‘Slave of Desire’.

The noble revolutionist, Ghandi once said that “Earth is able of satisfying man’s needs, but may not be able to satisfy their greed.”

Hence, we must always remind ourselves not to become ‘Slaves of Desire’. In addition, we must also educate our children so that they do not fall deep into the river of desire. When the time is right, we must provide the children chances to train themselves out of challenges. This is one of the ways to show love. For the sake of their future, we must strive harder to become great warriors that will never be easily defeated by desire!


Shared by,
Hong Jie.

Labels:

Written at 6:29 PM by Paper Pilot.