Wants and Needs. Happiness is telling the difference

The more your life departs from your ideal the unhappier you become. Modern society is a consumer society. The populous has to spend money to keep the whole thing moving forward like some hideous pyramid scheme.

The creation of desire is integral to this. You are constantly bombarded with advertising which largely tries to persuade you that without such and such a product you are somehow inadaquate.

A lot of it is the modern equivilent to snake oil. We have almost endless choice on how to solve problems we did not know existed last year.

Before you know it your "ideal life" is a distant dream of airbrushed celebrity with six pack stomach, straight white teeth and impossibly shiney hair. Its all available to you, just buy the right products.

Acne adverts suggest you are some sort of social leper if you get a spot. Dont worry you are not actually scarred for life, a landmine has not blown away vital body parts, you are not going to need facial reconstruction. Apply soap and water wait a few days.

All this is about creating wants which drains the fun out of your life and money out of your pockets.

If you get thirsty there is a myriad ways of quenching that thirst, you want a coffee, a beer, a coke, sports drink. You want almost anything apart from the thing you need, a glass of water.

And even if you do decide on a glass of water, there are a hundred designer waters you have to struggle past before the realisation that the stuff coming out of your tap is perfectly acceptable.

And even if you have got this far there is still that lurking fear, maybe you need an expensive filteration system to make that tap water just that bit safer.

Once you start to differentiate between what you need and what you want, you discover there is a whole lot of "wants" you simply dont need. Actually just about all your wants are totally pointless.

You are now gaining on that distant point on the horizon which is your "ideal" existence and bringing it closer to you.

Recognise the voice within you that says "I want" and try to think of the thing you actually need instead.

You are going to feel happier for doing it. You dont have a lot too lose but complexity afterall.