Company Blog

It’s What You Need

by Adam Zack — December 21, 2022

You get what you need…

You can’t always get what you want

But if you try sometime you find

You get what you need

– Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones

Christmas time is loaded with lists. What gifts to get who. Who’s coming for dinner? What do you need to shop for? What’s on the menu? Who to send cards to. Who not to send cards to. Who’s naughty. Who’s nice? As a kid we always made lists of what we wanted Santa (and a bit later, say 8 years old or so) for our parents to get us for Christmas. We started by looking at the Sears catalog in September. Marking pages, reading it over and over. Adding and subtracting to the list as fall marched towards Christmas. Not putting anything on the list that’s too far out of reach, but still with hopeful, lofty goals.

Grandparents wanted to know what was on the list. And since I had three sets of grandparents, the list got fulfilled a bit more. It’s a very exciting time of year for list makers. Because I have great parents and family, the lists usually reached a pretty saturated state of fulfillment. And since my birthday was a week after Christmas, any list of stragglers usually got covered then. It was a very exciting time of year for me. I was, and am, very fortunate and grateful, as I know there are a lot of lists that don’t even come close to being checked off. In fact, I know there were times that I was disappointed, and maybe even sad or moody that I didn’t get what I wanted. It’s embarrassing to myself now. What kind of spoiled brat turns into a big old baby because he didn’t get the Hot Wheels set he wanted? Was I a total jerk? It may have taken a few years, but I know now that I can’t always get what I want. We all can’t. In fact at this stage of life there are very few material things that I want or need. Whether it’s business goals, customer satisfaction levels, response from contact emails or phone calls or improvements in our personal lives, it just may not happen. That’s reality. We still need to make our lists of what we want and need, then do our best to make them reality, but sometimes we are going to be disappointed come holiday time that our lists are unchecked. We just need to have learned enough along the way, revise our lists to be realistic, be content and happy when our list gets fulfilled and not to be a jerk about it when it doesn’t get checked off. Happy Holidays 2022.