Trying to find enough

When I used to talk to kids about burrowing owls I couldn’t help but talk about the relationship between the owls and farmers. I would talk about how they were both trying to make their way in the world, working to meet their own needs and this brought them into conflict with each other as their interests often affected the other negatively.
This is the reality of many human-nature relationships. They are both trying to meet their needs and sometimes, well, often, these are contradictory if not mutually exclusive. Which raises the question of what to do if we are simply trying to meet our needs.
There is no simple answer for this and I don’t think anyone person has all the answers. But I think that one part of this is being able to distinguish need to haves from nice to haves. I’m not advocating minimalist living, although that is an entirely viable option, check out The Minimalists. I just think that most of us can probably think twice: go to the library instead of the bookstore, go to the thrift store instead of the mall, donate the things we don’t need, and consider what we really do need.
They always say that it is work to have a marriage, well part of a marriage is living together and isn’t that what we all have to do, live together on Earth?
One argument that my own brain is trying to raise is how are the animals supposed to compromise. But I would say most of them already have. They’ve adapted the best they can to cities, to buildings, to light pollution, and changing climate. One side can’t do all the compromising. We have to do some to. And there are many ways to do that; starting with thinking about what we really need, not just want.