What Essential Stuff Would You Want to Have?

This essential life series is a development of my previous article about choosing your essential things.

Lately, I’m still struggling with the choice between wants and needs. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. When I want to buy something, I always ask myself, “Do I want or need it?

Especially when financial conditions are less stable, buying essential stuff is the priority.

So, I held back my desires and focused on my needs. I held back my pride and focused more on the function.

For example, my smartphone broke. As a result, I didn’t use my smartphone for several weeks. Communication with people became hampered. Even if I wanted to buy a new smartphone, I didn’t have enough budget. I should fulfill other needs first.

Several weeks without a smartphone have taught me a lot of lessons. For example, lessons about taking care of the things I have, lessons about the importance of communication, lessons about spending precious time without a smartphone, etc. So far, I have missed many things because I have often focused on my smartphone rather than my surroundings.

Long story short, after having sufficient budget, I decided to buy another smartphone. But I didn’t buy it solely because of prestige. I didn’t think about famous brands, extraordinary quality, or expensive prices. I focus more on the function first, as long as it can communicate, browsing the internet, and the camera results are good enough. And I have to take good care of it.

From the incident of my broken smartphone, I also learned a lesson about the order in which I meet my needs. As we know, there are many needs. We should fulfill them sequentially so we don’t get overwhelmed. We learned about this in economics lessons at school. We afford needs according to the level of need, from primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Well, one of the things that makes us suffer is when we don’t fulfill them in sequence. For example, instead of fulfilling primary needs first, we are fulfilling tertiary needs first.

Okay.

Now, let’s talk about primary, secondary, and tertiary needs. I hope we don’t get the order wrong again.

Primary needs

Primary needs are usually called basic needs. Necessities that we need. It will be difficult for us to live without it.

Examples of primary needs are clothing, food, and shelter. If we have it, life can run smoothly. At least you can live a simple, standard, and safe life.

Secondary needs

I used to call secondary needs additional basic needs. These are necessities that also help run life smoothly. If it’s not met, it’s not a big problem. But if fulfilled, it is very beneficial for life.

For example: WIFI/internet quota, electricity, and petrol costs.

If we can fulfill these needs, we can still live normal activities. However, the process becomes less effective and efficient.

Tertiary Needs

I usually call tertiary needs optional needs. These are need that adds pleasure and comfort.

For example, an expensive smartphone can increase pleasure, and a private car can increase comfort on the road. Tertiary needs are almost similar to wants. Except for certain people, such as Go-Car or Uber drivers, tertiary needs can be primary and secondary needs because they make a living from it.

One of the keys to happiness is fulfilling our needs sequentially.

Even if it’s not in sequence, we can be happy, right?

Yes, you can if you have a lot of money. But some are ‘pretending’ to be happy. Even though they live a difficult life, they prefer buying luxury and expensive things first.

It’s better if we prioritize the function of the item first.

In conclusion, try to choose which stuffs or items that are functionally important. Buy things according to your order of needs, so it will be easier to live your life. Let’s learn to think about long-term consequences. Don’t just think about prestige, which is short-term or temporary.