Grade nine in Social Studies.

Wants and Needs

I believe that wants and needs are two very different things that sometimes are the same, because you can want something you need but also not need something you want. In the poor country of Laos however, to want and to need are represented by the same word.

I think that our needs are not unlimited but our wants are but consumer society and advertising makes us want to buy so many things that we supposedly need. Of course we don’t really need the stuff, but it ends up the more we get the more we want. It’s a vicious cycle.

It’s hard to satisfy needs over a long time because things and stuff get boring after a while. We need challenges and new adventurous things to do. You can be happy with a video game for a while but once you beat it you need more games and better systems.

It’s true that even if our education was perfect there would still be not enough workers because there are so many people who are lazy and don’t want to work even if they need to. So you can not want your needs as well.

The definitions for need and want are very unlike. A need being something that you can’t live suitably without, whereas, a want is something to be desired but you can live with out it. Everyone should know the difference between want and need, no matter your economic or social status.

In conclusion, wants and needs should always be seen as separate words but not always as separate states. You can need and want, but also want but not need and need but not want. Wants and needs are a very average everyday thing for every person; we’ll always want and need something until we die.