Often many of us sway our thoughts between two words 'Need' and 'Purpose' - both are equally important for our living but many will oblige when I say that I have a better inclination for 'Purpose' - the purpose to live and the purpose to do things while you exist.
'Need' is equally on the pedestal but has a sense of tangible greed - you could be needy for many materialistic things and aspire for much beyond your purpose.Contemplating on the subject once you have passed that breakeven age and are enduring mid life crisis , you start to seek what you are here for and what is your purpose to live and achieve?. Delving into those golden years that you have lived - childhood, adolescence, middle life and now progressing towards old age, you must have achieved quite a lot and if not, the need or greed must still be there but now thoughts waver at another tangent - what is the purpose of achieving all this? , for those who have achieved quite much, a question they ponder is was all the running around to achieve this much was worth it?
A famous thinker once said "Don't earn this much that you need to distribute in alms!" - the sayings is true in real sense today, looking at the trend of philanthropy now a days, big shot billionaires as donating their wealth!!!- money that they ran for in their entire life, and the killing hard work they must have done to earn so much , at the end of the day , they are of mind percept to 'Give' - so the purpose of need dilutes here - they must have satiated their needs for they have started to give back to the society and the deprived.
On the other hand, what about the 'purpose' - according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs , the top most need is spiritual - beyond which everything else fades, after you have achieved the societal needs and saved much for your living, you start to look for the 'Purpose' of your existence, this is another interpretation of what Maslow calls 'Self Actualization' - Questions such as - "why are you here for?", " what were you destined to achieve?" ,"Did you achieve your true purpose in life?" and "Where you will go from here?" , are the true askance of your living.In Hinduism your living has been categorized broadly into 4 stages - the last stage of life as prescribed in the texts is "Vanprastha" - meaning renunciation of worldly life and moving to seclusion and life of austerity and spirituality - it is in this context that you seek answers to your existence and your purpose.
Many of us talk to ourselves and ponder on this question but the jest of life supersedes the search for answers - very few beings consider themselves lucky to break the cage of daily razzmatazz of life and look for true answers but the pulls of life will damn you back to its basics and one day you will also find yourself stranded between the question of 'Purpose v/s Need' ...life will ask... wait for the moment...!!!