Tuesday 7 December 2021

What we want isn't what we need

A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a shotgun and fires it; barely missing the man. The man says "Thank you", leaves a tip and walks out. Why?

That riddle above shows that sometimes what we want and what we need are 2 different things. Human beings are irrational in that way. The best part is, we may not even know that we needed it. I'm sure we all have likes and dislikes. We prefer certain movies, songs, shows, etc. We also have weird cravings from time to time. And I'm sure that at times, we can't actually reason out these preferences when asked why.

To a certain extent, I believe God wired us that way. It makes us all... unique. It would be a boring world if everyone likes the same music, have the same taste in fashion, and enjoy the same food. No diversity.

In some matters, it could be conditioning. You listen to a music enough time, you make end up getting sick of it. You may also hate certain things because it's associated with a bad time in your life. I know I do. Then of course, sometimes we bow to external stimulation. We have (whether we like to admit it or not) decided to eat at certain places due to their advertisement before.

But sometimes, it could be due to something deeper. The most popular example is comfort food. To one person, it may just be sustenance. To someone else, it could life their spirits enough to go through the day.

So who knows really what we need? Clearly it's not us! It has to be the one who made us. A robot can't tell you what it needs, its creator will tell it/you. How nice for us that our creator has written a manual detailing all that we actually need! Now all we need to do is study that manual...

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