“Wants” are very funny things. We all have them, and we think the things we want are the most important things ever in the world. I want to own a house. I also want to earn money without leaving my house, or even changing out of my pajamas. My parents want to sell their house and move closer to the ocean. My brother wants to move back to the mountains. Right now, I want all the flies in the world to die, or at least leave my house and never come back. The basic desire, not “need” but “desire”, for things is what keeps us growing and improving as a species. We work not only for the basic necessities in life but for the unnecessary things that make our life happier.

My son is 2 ½. Most of his desires coincide with his basic needs. Notice I said “most”. He desires food, clothing, love, shelter, and dinosaur toys. If you could ask him, though, it might read more like dinosaur toys, love, food. I am not sure he really thinks that much about the roof over his head or the diapers on his butt. My daughter is 5 ½. Her wants include ballet classes, friends, and TV. In that order.

But what happens when what you seem to really want is unattainable. I have friends who seem to have this very problem. What they  want is for the people around them to be perfect. They want each other to be perfect, which has lead to some very interesting fights about housecleaning and the need for therapy. They wish we, their best friends, to be perfect. I wish we could be, but we are not. The husband in the scenario works with my husband, and he seems to expect a certain level of perfection from my husband that he himself is unwilling to strive to. And then he blames my husband when anything goes wrong. Once he even tried to blame his uneven paycheck hours on my husband. Luckily, the boss in question knows my husband enough to see through it.

It make me wonder why we are all still friends. I am willing to ignore the little digs at how my house isn't as big as theirs and so on. My husband finds the attempts to throw him under the proverbial bus amusing. We still like them, so why do they still like us. Are we the closest they have come to finding the mythical state of perfection, or do they think they can mold us into their image. I doubt it is the second one, because they already tried to get us to change political parties and failed miserably. It can't be because we are their only friends, because I can name right now people I know they are friends with.

I wonder, is it possible that in their minds, they really think we are perfect. Maybe that is why they make digs at us. Maybe trying to “pull us down to their level” is their way of leveling the playing field so they don't have to try so hard to attain perfection. Not to say that I think we are better than they are. Far from it, I actually feel that they are pretty great people who did a much better job of financial planning then we ever could do. I just wish I could get them to understand that, and then maybe they wouldn't feel like we all need to be perfect. I think the world would be a much better place if we could just be happy being “as good as we can be”.