Would you like to step inside my juvenile head? ‘Course, you do. Well, don’t just stand there; come on in. I’m going to take you back in time.

When I was a kid growing up in Mumbai, India, I had a thing for weird shirts with deep pockets. The operative word here is “deep”. I wasn’t into weird clothes, mind you; it’s just that the only shirts that came with deep pockets were, well, weird. Why this fetish for deep pockets?

So I could stuff them full of candy, that’s why.One of my favorite things to do as a kid was go to the movies with friends. On the way to the theater we would load up on candy. Lots and lots of it. As much as we could shove into our pockets. Hard candy; soft candy; hard on the outside, soft on the inside. Gold, red, caramel, whatever. More, more, more. Those with deep pockets had it real good, others were SOL. You could be forgiven for thinking that we kids traded in hamsters by carrying them around in our pockets.

So I wore clothes to the movies that I wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead wearing — just for their bottomless, cavernous pockets. Did I mention I was the undisputed candy king? Why, thank you.

Did we eat all the candy? You bet. And it was never enough. Did I mention I practically lived on sugar? Happiness lasted until the candy did, and then it was downhill after that. All the way into the arms of a familiar friend, Misery. Joy had skipped town and was nowhere to be found.

Perhaps you think I’m now going to extoll the evils of sugar. I would, except that I have bigger fish to fry. I want to talk about NEEDS and WANTS instead.

The only thing that mattered to my juvenile brain back then was “how much.” Quantity trumped quality —- each time, every time. Not only did my wants exceed my needs, I didn’t know there was a difference. Nor did I care.

When I was out of the nest and on my own as a young adult, I wanted to believe that I’d outgrown my juvenile tendencies. But I found otherwise.

That tormented kid of yesteryear was still inside; he was just playing hide-and-seek, that’s all. He’d show up at obvious places. Like at a lunch buffet.

It was as if I was playing host to two people inside me, a child and a parent, each with very different agenda: The child wanted everything the eyes beheld; the parent wanted restraint. The child favored “wants” and the parent favored “needs.” The child refused to grow up and the parent had lost all patience.

Years of inner work later: The inner parent learned to relax and ease up;  the inner child got to taste blood. Which is to say, he found Joy. And once you do, there ain’t no going back.

And together they found the secret to eternal joy, be it with food, love, money, success, whatever. You see, joy is a hackneyed word whose fate hangs between two four-letter words: Take all you NEED in life but less than what you WANT. Because while yer wants are endless, yer needs are few.