It's just an oversimplified position. I think you can want very little (quantity wise, as number of desires), but exercise massive amounts of will to achieve it. And then you can live with more or less ego, or more or less empathy and care.
I'm sure there's dozens of other ways to do it. You just can't get there with "NPC" and "not NPC".
Some people are much more the protagonist in their story than other people. And then there's the degree to which the story actually overlaps with reality. You can make it all up and not follow up on it, or you can make it come true, and everything in between, human reality does allow for that.