What are our deepest needs?

We know we need food, water and shelter. More than the basic though, we have this deep need. An emptiness that we so often try to fill with shallow things.

The emptiness is so painful we grab on to things that can help us numb the pain until such time that we believe we've found what we're looking for.

But have we really?

I've realized that the unusually excessive desire to have more, to always have the best and the newest gadget, to possess the most expensive accessories, to want to be seen in the coolest place hanging out with people you don't like as long as they make you look cool are nothing but a desire to be accepted, to be wanted, to be loved.

Best selling author Bo Sanchez says, "Addiction is nothing but a hunger for love."

We grow up with empty love tanks and when the people around us; our family, our friends, our community, fail to fill us with love, we look somewhere else to feed this hunger for love.

We look for attention, affirmation, assurance. We long for something that material things can never satisfy.

Unless we realize this, unless we start filling ourselves up with the right things, throw away the garbage that we accumulated in the hopes of covering our scars of rejection and emptiness; unless we search and chase genuine love, we will be like zombies.

Walking aimlessly, looking for something that can satiate our longing, not knowing what it is for as long as we don't feel hungry and in pain.

We will continue to be miserable unless we scrape away the layers of our shallowness and dig deeper for what we truly need.