Wanting the Things We Can't Have

What do we actually want?

In my latest video, we discuss the concept of scarcity and its impact on how we view things as valuable or not. If we perceive something as scarce, then our brains naturally think it has more value. If we perceive it as common, not so much.

Such a simple mental shortcut that we all have, but impacts us on a daily basis. Think about how things are priced or how we perceive people. Even at how we look at opportunities (“I may never get this chance again!”).

And all of this really just makes me think, do we realize what we actually want? Or are we so influenced by scarcity that it tends to weigh heavily on all of our decisions?

A Return from a Big Trip

If you’ve been following this newsletter for the past month, you will know that I’ve been backpacking through Southeast Asia. I just returned from my trip and one thing I realized is I barely bought souvenirs or anything to take home. Just some presents for my family.

A friend was talking to me and mentioned how it was so strange because I used to buy more souvenirs when I was younger. However, now as I’m older, I prefer my photos that I take with my camera as my personal souvenirs from my trip. I save the memories.

But souvenirs themselves kind of have this scarcity impact. When you’re on a trip, you might think to yourself “yeah this is just a scarf, but it’s a scarf from THAILAND and who knows when I’ll be in Thailand again?”

There is a double scarcity here since the object itself is rare to you since it’s made in Thailand and the opportunity to come back to Thailand is also rare if you might only get one or two chances to travel there.

And sometimes people will buy things out of character for them. I was in Hoi An in Vietnam and they are known for these really beautiful lanterns. They are all over the city and I was admiring them during my few days there. They sell a ton of them on the streets, some shops even offering lantern making classes.

However, if I’m honest with myself, I will never use a lantern or have a place to put it in my home. But the draw is there: this town is KNOWN for lanterns and you can have one for YOURSELF.

And people buy into it and try to bring them home (many of them inevitably being destroyed in luggage since there isn’t an easy way to fold them into your suitcase). But it’s all scarcity!

It’s not necessarily that I’ll use the lantern, but when will I be in Hoi An and get the chance to buy a lantern again? Call it FOMO, but it’s a powerful mechanism to sell.

What You Want vs What You Need

I’m not saying that it’s necessary for us to “need” something to purchase it or desire it. However, I think it’s also good to think about how perceptible we are to psychological biases such as the “scarcity effect”.

We might want something simply on the basis of some sort of scarcity principle!

One of my favorite examples are sales that aren’t really sales. “For a limited time we are having a storewide sale! Don’t miss out!” Of course, this is enticing because this is being framed as a short window of opportunity to save some money.

But you know how you can save even more money? Don’t spend any money and skip the sale all together.

Companies have whole teams of people that focus on this stuff and their whole job is to get you, the consumer, to buy their stuff using psychological tactics. I have a whole master’s degree dedicated to this, these people are very skilled.

The easiest way to ground yourself in this age of consumerism is to really think about what you value and what you want to spend money on. Things aren’t as rare or cool as they seem to be. And most of the time things have a way of being used once and never being used again.

Some Final Thoughts

I didn’t even get into other instances of the scarcity effect in this newsletter (relationships, events, etc.), but you can imagine that our brains are pretty consistent across domains.

If something is rare… it’s more valuable.

However, let’s challenge the concept of “rareness” in our lives. Just because someone tells me I’ll never get this chance again, does it really matter to me? Even though there are only a few of this item left, would I have really wanted it anyway?

We live in a world of scarcity, but also a world of abundance. There’s a lot more out there than you might think. So let’s not keep ourselves in a scarcity mindset and try to reframe our thinking to that of abundance.

You might be surprised with the results.

-Carlos

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