What People Want

What People Want

August 22, 2012

Melinda Gates, as in Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, once said: 

“Whatever the conditions of people’s lives,

wherever they live, however they live,

they share the same hopes,

and the same dreams as you and I.”

She and Bill know a bit about what people want around the world.  They are active in bringing food, medicine, and an understanding of good hygienic habits to many individuals in what would be considered third-world countries and impoverished areas of our world.

Yet the basics in human living and daily existence stay the same.  I live in Seattle, a top drawer, modern metropolitan city.  It has been years since I used an outhouse on my grandfather’s farm.  Yet for some in our world, this is a regular event. 

Am I better for having indoor toilets?  Am I more important because I wear shoes AND socks?  I love a great pot roast with potatoes and hot homemade biscuits.  Does that give me a higher status than someone living in a grass hut with no electricity? 

Are my dreams and hopes on a higher plane?  Is my existence of a more significant nature just because I am who I am and live where I live?

I don’t think so. 

Hopes and dreams are color-blind.  They have no bias.  They are different for cultural reasons, economic reasons and tastes, but everyone has a right to hold onto a dream and a hope. 

So, what do people want?  Here are eight wants every human being holds onto. 

To be happy

To have health

To be reasonably prosperous

To be secure

To have friends

To have peace of mind

To have good family relationships

To have hope

Do you live in a high rise in Manhattan?

Do you live in a trailer park in Florida?

Do you drive a high speed auto?

Do you drive a donkey cart?

Regardless, we both have hopes and dreams. 

We want reasonable stuff.  Did you notice that seven out of eight of the items on our list deal with “soft” wants, and only one has to do with “stuff’?  To be “reasonably prosperous” is stuff.

All of the others deal with emotional man.  We want to belong, to have friends, to be loved, be secure, be healthy, and have a good family experience.

We want connection.  We want to be validated. 

We can do that.  We can validate.

We can offer a smile and a nod of greeting.

We can use kind and esteeming words. 

We can offer friendship.

And now we take the first step.

P Michael Biggs

Offering Words of Hope

One Word at a Time