WANTS AND NEEDS

Legitimate Needs

Intellectual Needs.   Your mind needs information, stimulation, and the challenge of problems to solve.  You have an innate need to comprehend and understand the people and events around you.   You need variety, recreation and play time.  You have a drive to accomplish things.  You need to grow and to change.  You need the freedom to honestly express your thoughts and you need authentic, consistent responses from others.

Emotional Needs.   Less obvious, but hardly less essential, are your emotional needs — to love and be loved, to have companionship, to feel that you are respected, and to respect others.   You need sympathy and compassion from others, and you need to express your own sympathy and compassion for them. 

Needs v. Wants

.. If you have low self-esteem, it’s hard enough for you to pursue survival needs.   But your less vital needs and wants seem unimportant, particularly if they conflict with someone else’s.  Moreover, you tend to identify essential needs as mere wants and neglect to satisfy them.  You think that you’re being a stoic and forgoing comfort for the sake of others; but actually you’re an unwitting martyr to your low self-esteem.   You’re not merely uncomfortable, you’re surrendering important emotional, social, intellectual or spiritual needs for the fear of hurting or offending someone.

(there’s more.. if these things sound legitimate to you, you may want to buy or check out the book)