Some time ago, I had the chance to go on a three-day trip to Cleveland, which allowed my family and I the opportunity to get away for a bit.

While we were there, I thought about a conversation while calling home, where we were asked “how the room was.” When I thought about this fascinating question, which me consider what we look at, when describing vacation accommodations.

Lately, I’ve been deeply interested in minimalism and intentional living, which I suppose are different sides of the same coin. For me, I can summarize my outlook with a few questions: “What do I need? What is important? How can I get these things?”

When it came to this trip, we ended up staying just outside of Cleveland to save a little money. We were only there in the morning and at the end of the day. So all that we really needed was a clean, safe room, where we can leave our stuff. We did want a place with an indoor pool (these days, standard in many places) to help our son work on his swimming. The place had a complimentary continental breakfast, which helped us save money on food. So for us, cleanliness, safety, indoor pool and continental breakfast were our “boxes.”

If we are looking at an intentional life, I would say that, besides intentional language, there should be intentional thought. For me, I feel that they’re two sides of the same coin. I think that all too often, many of us consider language and thought as the same. When we say that we “need” something, do we really? I think that, if we were honest, we would probably say no.

Just the other day, I was talking to someone about, when my wife and I were househunting. At the time, my wife had a more flexible schedule than me, so often she would look at houses by herself with the realtor. She was able to go without me, which worked because we already talked about what we needed and wanted in a house.

We needed for it to be move in ready, as we didn’t have money for any immediate repairs. Also, we needed it to have minimal landscaping, as neither of us have a green thumb nor did we want to spend all weekend on landscaping. We were both very interested in a two-story house. When I was a kid, I remember, when we were househunting and was disappointed that they didn’t go for the two-story house. My wife wanted a house with an island in the kitchen, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker for her. In the end, we were able to get that two-story move-in ready house with minimal landscaping but without a kitchen island. We had a clear idea of what we needed in a new house, what we very much wanted and what was up for negotiation.

I feel that, when we approach big life decisions, we need to really and objectively look at what we need vs. what we want. Let us not delude ourselves into forgetting that there is a difference. Let us continue using intentional language and continue utilizing intentional thought. I suspect that, when doing so, we’ll be able to cut through the mental clatter that complicates what should be crystal clear.