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A Theory on Life
Why do we do that thing we do?
Abraham Maslow supposed that people all over the world live life motivated by the same universal needs (nature's life insurance)even though they find very different strategies to gratify them.
According to Maslow: "Apparently (nature's life insurance) ends in themselves are far more universal than the roads taken to achieve those ends, for these roads are determined locally in the specific culture. Human beings are more alike than one would think at first."
He further assumes that these universal needs can be ranked in a hierarchy of needs, and suggest that the basic needs of survival and security first must be gratified before the higher needs, love and esteem, etc. come into play.
He states, "We should never have the desire to compose music or create mathematical systems, or to adorn our homes, or to be well dressed if our stomachs were empty most of the time, or if we were continually dying of thirst, or if we were continually threatened by an always impending catastrophe, or if every one hated us."(hmmn, sounds like our current political state)
Maslow suggests that man's needs never will be fully satisfied. As soon as one need is satisfied a new and higher need will arise. This is the primary urge in man (the self's will to manifest) that secure the progress of the soul's evolutionary journey, and the essential principle that develops all the higher potentials in the human consciousness.
Maslow defines these basic needs in his famous hierarchy of needs, which includes physiological needs, the need for safety and security, the need for love and belonging, the need for esteem, and the need to actualize the self.
Maslow's hierarchy of core needs
- The Physiological Needs: Man has before anything else the need for water and food in order to survive. That's why life motivated by the physiological needs are the strongest of all the needs. When a person is hungry the area of consciousness is filled with the desire to eat and all the other needs steps in the background and is in a way non-existent. I would venture to include sex in this category. I would often wonder why starving people continually bore children. The desire to procreate is strong even in the midst of hunger.
The future perspective seems to change according to the present need. The hungry person only thinks about eating and acquiring enough food for his hunger. He thinks that his happiness would be complete if he just had plenty of food. Life is about eating -freedom, love and idealism are non-existent. A man living under these conditions lives in a way by bread alone.
But what happens when there is plenty of bread? Instantly a new and higher need arises and that need will now dominate man. When this need is gratified a new one will emerge and so on. In this way the basic needs are organized in a hierarchy of relative strength. And, we are in a sense never satisfied.
- The Safety and Security Needs: After the physiological needs, the need for security, stability, protection, freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos emerge; and according to them, the need for structure, order, law, borders etc. (hmmn, sounds like that political machine again).
A major part in child development is to give them insight in how the world is functioning, and thereby reduce the fear of the unknown. Children have a need for order, structure, rituals and borders because it gives them an ability to find security in a big world. Injustice and unpredictable behavior from parents creates insecure children because the world gets unpredictable.
That's why chaos, aggression and disturbance in the home environment are a major block for establishing security in the child.
In the civilized world today, life motivated by the security needs express themselves as the need for a regular income, savings and insurance. Religion, science and philosophy can also serve as an important security measure, which explains the world and gives a feeling of safety in the face of death. But there are of course many other needs attached to them.
- Love and Belonging Needs: When security is properly gratified the need for love, tenderness and belonging emerge. In this state we become painfully aware about the lack of friends, lovers, spouse and children. We will be longing for a loving and nurturing family life. It can be harmful for children and adults to live without a family.The need for community is grossly underestimated.
Life motivated by the love needs imply giving and receiving love; and when these needs are gratified sufficiently, ironically,the need for individuality arises.
- Esteem Needs: Most people have a need for a stable sense of self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher one is the need for self-esteem, strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence and freedom. The last one is higher because it rest more on inner competence won through experience.
Deprivation of these needs can lead to an inferiority complex, weakness and helplessness.
Danger lurks in the shadows for those associated with self-esteem based on fame and outer recognition instead of inner competence. Healthy self-respect is based on earned respect.
Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still (not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless you are doing what you, individually, are fitted for.
In other words, for you to truly be happy, you must find and Live your purpose every day of your life.
- The Need for Self-Actualization: relates to our need for self-perfection, to be what we have the potential to be. In this respect Maslow discriminates between lack motivation and growth motivation, the latter corresponding to self-actualization. Lack needs can be fulfilled, Being needs will always be there and lead us to unceasingly new possibilities.
2 Cor. 13:11 - "Be perfect and the God of love and peace shall be with you."
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