Lent Lesson 2: Need versus want

I’m actually really thankful that I’m into the last week of Lent.  I don’t think I have a single pair of black tights left that don’t have at least three holes in (I think they waited until Lent began before they started sprouting ladders all over the place), the black pumps I wear in the office everyday are threadbare and falling apart and the wicker bag I carry with me everywhere has bust a strap, thus rendering it useless.  Oh despair!

For the sake of the challenge, however, I’ve managed to get by.  I’ve been wearing trousers to work slightly more than usual, I’ve dug out a replacement bag (free with a magazine several eons ago) and I’ve walked around the office in my stocking soles thus avoiding having to wear the shoes of eternal scruffdom (I prefer the tattered Cinders look anyway).  Sounds a bit drastic I know but I just plain refuse to break Lent after having come so far.  As of Saturday, however, I will no longer be able to churn out the old ‘but it’s Lent and I’m not buying anything’ excuse.  I must accept my fate blog readers – I’m going to to make a trip to the shops.

Lent has got me thinking about the idea of needing things.  What do we actually need in life, and what is simply a case of want?  It occurs to me that the lines between these two ideas have become, for many of us, extremely blurred.  When money flows, life becomes more than a case of simply surviving from day to day and our evaluations of what we consider really necessary change dramatically.  No longer is it a case of food, warmth and shelter, but shoes for every fathomable occasion, bed linen for every conceivable type of guest and a different serving dish for every type of cuisine to come from the kitchen.  How often have you heard someone justify buying something frivolous on the basis that they ‘really need it‘?  All the time, right?  I’ve done it myself.  Many shoppers are plagued with the notion that it’s OK to spend a fortune on something as long as they can somehow say they needed it.

This bugs me.  Why do we do it?  I think the answer is pretty simple.  Deep down, we know it’s unnecessary, we know it’s over-indulgent and we know the money should really be going towards something better.  ‘I really need it‘ is an age-old excuse, and it’s churned out on high streets up and down the land every Saturday afternoon without fail.  Of course it’s true that sometimes our lives would be considerably easier if we had certain things, and it’s for this reason that I’m going to buy new tights and a bag this weekend, but that’s not the same as really needing, is it?

Lent has reminded me not to misuse the word ‘need’.  It has reaffirmed to me the idea that I don’t actually require very much in life that money can buy me.  I have somewhere to sleep, food on my plate and more clothes than I could shake a reasonably-sized stick at.  My other basic needs are the things that can’t be bought (well, not in the mainstream, non-creepy sense anyway): friendship, love, time and peace.  I’m going to try my best to remember that when I start buying again.  When so many people in the world have so little and really do know the difference between need and want, I think it’s more than just slightly shameful that so many of us have yet to grasp the big picture.

Image above from Flickr – incurable hippie.