I commit myself to seeking a fair and just balance between my wants and needs and those of others.
The inability to distinguish between what we really need and what we might think would be nice to have is evidence of a psychosis. Most of us are indeed aware of the difference, although these needs will vary from individual to individual; you will never need a good violin unless you play one. However, we are also bombarded with advertisements every day that seek to convince us that their product is the missing item from our lives and that it will radically change our quality of life for the better. In distinguishing needs from mere wants (which may not even be our own true wants anyway) we are making a commitment to freeing ourselves from these pressures and also seeking to understand what is really essential for our well-being and what is merely a whim or an indulgence of desires we may not have created for ourselves voluntarily.
Being aware that our needs may well clash with others’ needs, we commit ourselves to respecting the right of others to their needs and to ensuring our actions do not attempt to interfere with the rights of our fellow beings to assess their own true needs.
