Hey, Cemar - But I'm a Nice Guy!

[fearless]

My father-in-law used to say "it's not what people need that creates the problems in the world, it's what they WANT" - no truer words have been spoken

I think this is more about understanding wants versus needs. And how we should be cautious of letting our wants get out of hand. Think about it. As a society we all seem to want to have MORE things and in order to have more we want things to be cheaper. And therefore we are implicitly okay with letting people in other countries work 12 hour days 7 days a week for dollars a day in order to satisfy our wants.


Isn't it the cardinal error of the Nice Guy that he pretends he has no wants

I think the cardinal error would be that the Nice Guy is that he does not know himself and is not comfortable with himself and is looking for someone external to make him feel good about himself. Pretending he does not have wants or needs is merely one way to get that result. The martyr on the other hand would make a big deal of vocalizing their wants and needs but refusing to get them in order to try to make themselves feel good about who they are and that doesn't work much better for them than the nice guy pretending that they have no wants or needs.