Report: Thinkers' Club Session 32

Date: 26^th April, 2015

Session # 32

Attended by: 9 participants

Report written by: Fatima Salman

In this session, we discussed what our needs and wants are. Our needs are the things that are essential for us. Our needs include food, water, oxygen, clothes, etc. Our wants are things that are not essential for us. Examples of wants are cars, gadgets, accessories, etc. We talked about our wants. First, we had to think of what our wants were a year ago. Everyone had to think and note them down, and then share them with others. Most of those wants had been fulfilled, while some had not. Then we had to think and note down our current wants. Then we shared our wants with everyone. Our wants were written down on the board. We were told that our wants are in our hearts. We use our minds to check our wants.

After recalling all our current wants, we classified them in three categories: Good wants, Unclear wants, and Not so good (or bad) wants. Good wants are the wants that have a meaningful purpose in them. Unclear wants are wants that we are not clear about, or the wants that don’t make much sense. Not-good or bad wants are the wants that have no real meaning or purpose. We classified our wants according to their purposes. For example, if a child wants to go abroad to visit his\her relatives, this is a good want. However, there is always a cost of the want. Like going abroad may cost a lot of money. It will also require a passport, and visa of that country. It will also take time. The cost of the want is divided into three aspects: Time, money, and energy. In this way, we classified all the wants. A common want some people shared was to have their own room. We talked about the cost of the want. Like if there’s a house with three rooms, and six people living there, one person wanting his\her own room is unfair for the rest.

This way, we sorted the wants into good, unclear, and not good wants. We also figured out the cost of the want. The cost was not just about money, but also about time and energy, 

which were equally (or even more) important.

There are three things everyone must consider about their wants:

1. Know your wants
2. Check – are they good or not
3. Calculate the costs of your wants

We should pursue our good wants, if we are able to afford them. We shouldn’t go after our bad wants, even if they are cheap and do not take much time and energy. We are governed by our wants. We must follow our good wants, only if are able to do so. If we have a good want, and are able to pay the cost for it, we should definitely pursue it.

After this discussion, talked briefly about our needs. We have Primary needs and Secondary needs. Our Primary needs include Basic needs and Functional needs.

As there wasn’t any time left, we will continue the discussion in the next session. In the meantime, we can do the home task: we have to make a presentation or write an article about our wants. In it, we can tell about the types of wants, their costs, and more. It can include the examples shared, and things we learned about our wants in this session. These 

things will be shared in the next session.

Everyone enjoyed this session, and we all learnt a lot in it. We will continue the topic in the next session, Insha Allah.

Thank you.