Tricked you. You thought this column was going to be on a THE “N-word.” Sorry to disappoint. That is a topic I want nothing to do with, because I am in no way qualified to speak on it.

This other “N-word” however, is another story.

This word shows how self-indulgent, greedy and slothful we are. We all use it, regardless of gender or ethnicity. Any one of us can walk across this campus, from Guy West to J Street, and hear this despicable word more times than we would like to count.

It’s a word that sums up our culture and social values with frightening accuracy. In this land of overabundance and instant gratification, this four-letter word is used with a sickening frequency. Enough with the clues already, the word is “need.”

It seems as if all of us need more sleep, need more time or need more help. My fellow students constantly assault my ears with this loaded word.

Stop saying you need to get the new iPhone or a haircut. Sure, I would love to have a pair of authentic true blue Jordan III’s and match them with a Quentin Richardson Clippers jersey, but it’s not a need. I wouldn’t even say I yearn for it.

All you really need is food, water and shelter. Everything else is just a bonus, a want or a desire.

Go ask the soon-to-be displaced residents of Tent City if they need anything more than food, clean water and a place out of the cold. They won’t waste your time whining about not being caught up with the latest season of “Rock of Love.”

Abraham Maslow is credited with creating the “Hierarchy of Needs.” It looks like an old-school food pyramid and lists the most basic human needs at the bottom. The needs become less about life and death as the pyramid builds upwards, and the top is about self-esteem and maximizing your potential. There are six blocks to the pyramid. Three are important, the other three are luxuries.

The first block is the easiest. We need food, water and shelter. It’s impossible to argue these basic needs. Clean water, plentiful food and a dry place to sleep at night should be considered basic human rights, but this column is focusing on ridding our vocabulary of one insipid word rather than making human beings more compassionate.

Maslow’s next building block is the need for security and protection against violence. You could combine security with shelter and have it in the first block, but it’s a semantic argument at best. The need for friendship and family is the third part. It’s where Maslow should have stopped.

The fourth block is about self-esteem, so we will just skip it. Self-esteem is psychobabble for being full of yourself. My self-esteem is through the roof; Oprah Winfrey would refer to me as “empowered.”

The fifth block is about an individual realizing his or her inner potential. Simply put, it’s some existential nonsense that only people in developed nations get the privilege of trying to fulfill. Those doing their best to avoid contracting cholera in Africa probably aren’t too concerned with experiencing purpose.

The sixth and final need is the need for self-actualization, basically being all you can be. People who spend their lives looking for purpose and self-actualization are the neediest group of slobs around. Avoid them at all costs.

Maslow’s pyramid is a bunch of crap. I intentionally failed a test on it in high school just to spite it.

Just to be clear, I don’t seriously expect the word “need” to disappear from our language overnight just because I denigrate it in one of my columns.

I don’t expect anything to change whatsoever. Rest assured, we will continue to be the same needy, greedy, edgy, egotistical and self-serving lot that we have been our entire lives. But I wouldn’t complain if we thought about not using the word with such reckless abandon.

Just for one day, observe how and in what context you use the word need. You may learn something about yourself.

Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected]