Happiness - Needs That Make You Feel Anxious Now Defined

In my previous article titled, "Happiness - Anxiety and Your Dire Need to Be Loved, Approved, and Accepted," we came to the conclusion that in order for us to spare ourselves from feeling oppressive doses of anxiety, we would better understand the various meanings of the word "need" and draw specific distinctions between these different meanings.

In this particular sense, I suggest we continue the exploration of our alleged "need" to be loved, approved, and accepted by anyone in order to be happy.

Let’s first begin by establishing that none of our needs is absolute. In other words, we cannot have an absolute need for a shovel, a hammer, or a coat as such. All our needs are relative to the achievement of some targeted goal.

For example, we will say:

• "I need a shovel to dig the soil."
• "I need a hammer to drive a nail."
• "I need a coat to dress myself."
  

On top of that, our needs—which are all relative—divide themselves into replaceable and irreplaceable needs to achieve our targeted goal. Here are some examples:

• To drive a nail, a hammer is a replaceable need in that we can always achieve this task by hitting the nail with something else.
• To survive, we have an irreplaceable need for food duly suited to our human body... but we have a replaceable need for chocolate or strawberry cake.
  

In short, while certain elements are necessary for us to achieve certain goals—breathing to live, having a violin to be able to play this musical instrument—other elements are only useful—a comb to disentangle our hair (our fingers can also do the trick!), a romantic partner to be happy.

When we mix up the useful and the necessary, then the unenjoyable emotion of anxiety inevitably manifests itself. As a matter of fact, how can we not feel at least a little bit of concern—a low intensity form of anxiety—when we believe that some very useful element to our happiness could be taken away from us?

Let’s be honest: We don’t have an irreplaceable need for our two legs in order to be happy. In fact, even amputees can experience happiness in their lives. Of course, this will not prevent us to hold on to our two legs and feel some anxiety if we are in danger of losing one or both of them. On the other hand, let’s realize that our anxiety will be tenfold if we wrongly believe that we absolutely need our two legs to be happy—that both our legs are not only useful but also necessary to our happiness. Needless to say we will experience panic, terror, and anxiety to the max.

Now, let’s get back to our main question: Do we absolutely need the uninterrupted, permanent, and exclusive love, approval, and acceptance of anyone to be happy? You will most probably and instantly agree with me that this love, approval, and acceptance can contribute to our happiness. But the real question is: Are these elements indispensable, essential, and necessary for us to be happy? That is what I suggest we explore together in a future article.