I mean, the lifetime desires system is a janky placeholder anyway, with babies being born to know exactly what they want to do in life and never ever deviating from that goal (and its a coinflip as to whether that goal is in anyway meaningful or might as well read "eat every other dwarf in the universe"), and being satisfied forever if its completed.
True. Ideally, all dwarves should have
multiple life goals--they desire to master a skill,
and raise a family,
and see the world's natural wonders, etc . . . what's generated is the different order in which each dwarf ranks the
relative importance of each of these dreams. And the perceived importance of these goals should be roughly in tune with each dwarf's traits/attributes.
Perhaps the single "stress" counter should be broken up into separate "yearning" categories like Security, Companionship, Productivity, Creativity, Comfort, etc. Being well satisfied in one category does
not carry over to other the categories, but there are many things (currently called "focus-based needs") that can fulfill each category: A dwarf that has no friends or family can still meet his Companionship quota with lots of positive time with his pet, for instance. Each dwarf places their own value on each of the "yearning" categories (some might love Creativity but not give a damn about Productivity, for example), or perhaps even on each of the individual needs within each category. Certain needs might be part of more than one category, and affect them in different ways: Spending time with one's young children should boost Companionship but perhaps lower Security, as the parent knows that it's her responsibility to feed & protect those kids . . . but later on, when the children have grown to adults, seeing them would
raise the mother's Security and Comfort, as now she knows they can feed and protect
her if she should ever require it.