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| Equanimity and Prioritizing in Decision-Making: Distinguishing Needs, Wants, Interests, and Preferences from Desires (c) 2011-12 by Angus Cunningham Principal, Authentix Coaches |
| Language can be a blunt or a delicate tool: it can have violent effects, or else its user can consciously seek to make its effects as non-violent as possible. Violent effects spring from demands, whether what is demanded is physical or emotional. Language including the word ‘need’ to imply that another must meet it conveys a demand, whereas language requesting help in meeting a need that is genuinely necessary and urgent conveys respect for both one’s own and another’s humanity. Language that conflates the meanings of the words 'need', 'want', 'desire' and 'preference' can trigger a huge array of social confusions. In his book “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life”, clinical psychologist, Director of Education for the Center for Nonviolent Communication, and author Marshall Rosenberg uses the word ‘need’ often, which raised for me the question of what is a need and how is it different from a want, a desire, or a preference. Our use of these words, whether in articulating or interpreting, seems to me often to be careless, and also that such lack of care for our usage of language will often trigger otherwise unnecessary issues to arise. I have therefore prepared a table of distinctions between these four words for clients of my coaching in Eye-Zen English for connected problem-solving: .. |
These distinctions derive from two facts. One is that our English-speaking forbears were clear that the word 'want' implied a lack. A lack may become critical in the future, or it may already be critical. That clarity allowed them to distinguish a need as a lack assumed already to be critical -- from a want, which although also a necessity, was not as immediate a necessity. I have chosen in the table to respect that ancient clarity among English speakers because it obviously is critical to equitable and accurate prioritizing. The other fact is that, as an English-speaking community, we have collectively become quite unaware of the trouble we cause if we either neglect or unethically exploit this ancient linguistic distinction. But, when we use the most rarely used of the four words, preference, we do demonstrate that we are at least aware that our “need/want/desire” in that moment is not one we have any entitlement to expect others to respect as a high priority. We are not presupposing that we have any such entitlement. If, however, we neglect to recognize this reality, we present a very big challenge to connected problem- solving. The distinctions of my table could be taken by some as hard and fast definitions that a team of authoritative dictionary editors would make, and then used to demand that one’s conversational partners comply with them. That would be a mistake for it would only lead to emotional violence at the least. Instead a generous interpretation of another’s initial casual, rather than scrupulous, use of the word ‘need’ empowers one to allow the psychological space of some conversational time in which to clarify priorities. Repeatedly unscrupulous use of the word 'need' can, of course, become abusive, so repeatedly generous interpretations that are not met with reciprocal generosity are unwise for they will lead to what is known as a racket. This brings me to three interrelated subjects: interpreting our own and others’ emotions, using our senses of them to establish relative priorities, and the state of being known as equanimity. Researchers in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy have established over the last few generations that our emotions are valuable pointers to our needs. But they have also observed that our life experiences lead us either to over- or under-value our own needs relative to those of others. These errors of valuation can be very serious in problem-solving conversations where there is a gross difference between the parties, conscious or unconscious, in two psycho-social factors:
How can decision-making errors from such factors be averted or mediated? It seems to me that errors from both these factors are often, but not always, introduced to conversations unconsciously, and that they manifest either as conflicts of which the participants become aware through the strong experience of negative emotions, or as outcomes in which there will be the less strong residual emotions for both those who feel they have 'lost' and those who feel they have 'won'. If one has a feeling of loss, one will have settled for emotions that are at least tolerable, while if one has emotions that are more positive one will have a feeling of having won. Yet we know that truly successful problem-solving only occurs when both people feel they have won by their own, and different, senses of what constitutes success. This suggests to me that the reaching of what each party understands as equanimity will be a sensible aim from the point of view of the well- being of anyone likely to be seriously affected by the decisions taken, especially in the case of big decisions either from one's own point of view or of society's. Some may argue that those with emotions on the positive side of equanimity may prefer to 'cut loose' and enjoy their 'win' with the supposition that their positive emotions will empower them to distribute the benefits of their superior capacity to get their needs/wants/desires/preferences met. But, if that is so, then right before them are people whose emotions indicate a greater need/want/desire/preference. In short, leaving a problem-solving conversation in a state other than equanimity, whether feeling oneself either as 'a winner' or as 'a loser', is presumptive of something. So the question to be answered before leaving, either as a winner or a loser, is "What am I presuming?" or perhaps, to be linguistically consistent with Eye-Zen English principles, "What presupposition has, unconsciously, been underlying my thinking? (or, in NVC or Landmark Forum parlance, "What story have I been telling myself)", which may lead one back to search for shared equanimity in the conversation one is proposing to leave. What was it that the Charles Dickens' character "Fagin" sang in the musical "Oliver!"? Do you remember his face when, as a refrain to a collective narrative song of the petty thieving of the orphans he was 'parenting', he sang: "I think I'd better think it out again!"? .. |
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| So much for the distinctions to which I suggest my clients refer when setting priorities along a path that my experience tells me leads as close to equanimity for the parties in a purposeful conversation as they are willing to devote to that aim. Leading a life that is, I confess, often far from equanimity, my experience is that their application also leads to an exploration of what I think we are all leaning unconsciously toward when we use the word 'interest'. What do I mean by that? If I myself acknowledge an interest, it implies that my attention has swung toward my recognizing that I have an incipient need, want, desire, or preference, and the question for me is "which of these emotions (N/W/D/P) is the more accurate description?" At one end of the spectrum of the possibilities related to my interest, I may think of myself as a stakeholder in the situation I feel -- or sense -- surrounds me. In that case I would know that I won't be able easily to back out of answering this question rather thoroughly. If, on the other hand I think of myself as merely an observer, then my realistically feasible options would include the extreme of "moving on", much as I suppose the 'real speculators' many of us tend to hate in the financial world are constantly doing. |