Tanha (say "tahn-hah") is the Pali word usually translated craving, and the Buddhist teaching that names it as the engine of suffering is precise about what it does and doesn't mean. It isn't a case against wanting anything at all. Teachers distinguish tanha from chanda, a wholesome motivation toward practice or someone else's welfare, from the compulsive kind of wanting that keeps circling back no matter what it gets. And craving doesn't just reach for more pleasure. It also reaches to end or escape whatever feels unbearable right now, which is its own kind of grip. The old texts say craving has to be uprooted, not just pushed down for a while, or it grows back like a cut tree with its roots left in the ground. Notice the next small reach today, toward a snack, a scroll, an exit from a boring meeting, and just watch the reaching before you follow it.
He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in this world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus leaf.
The Dhammapada, verse 336 (trans. F. Max Müller)