Every human has covert needs that must be satisfied in every passing day to survive and live a happy fulfilling life. Abraham Maslow introduced those needs in the early 1940’s, using a 5 category hierarchical system. The components of that system were: physical, safety, relationship, self-esteem, and self-awareness ranging from the most needed to the least needed respectfully. He stated that the physical needs consisted of food, sleep, water, shelter, excretion and sex all in the core of every person. In the past humans have had to survive in a harsh world, but we have used our intelligence and ingenuity to make it less harsh and more convenient. Most people today do not think too hard about whether or not they will eat later. Without food or water people forget everything in their life and seek that one meal that is on their mind. Just imagine being secluded on a stranded desert beach. There is no food within miles. In this situation, many people would dream about having food. This is also true with every other physical need. Once deprived of the other needs, people tend to lose focus and crave that need.
Safety- We all need a safe haven in a shelter and from parents as children.
Relationship— We need relationships from lovers, family and friends to enjoy life.
Self-esteem— We seek fame recognition, reputation, materials and evaluate ourselves.
Self-actualization- We become what we do. Painters have to paint and musicians have to create music. They hone their craft for themselves.
My take on Maslow’s model is a little different and I introduce a metaphor of a person climbing a mountain. Instead of having five human needs I have listed six needs that lead to a total awareness of self and harmony with the world. It would be transcendence, almost a total meaning of no meaning in life. My system is similar to Maslow’s but includes some necessary needs. Those needs are Physical, Social/Emotional, Self-Esteem, Self-Actualization, Passion/Discovery and Truth Beauty all leading to divine transcendence. Think of it like this there is a mountain in everyone that is miles high and at the top is total contentment, which everybody strives to achieve. Inside each person is a climber that is an embodiment of themselves. That climber eats exactly the way the person does, sleeps the same—everything. However, the climber has trouble climbing the mountain because of certain needs are not being properly handled by the person.
The base of the mountain is mammoth in circumference, is the tallest and is fairly shallow in angle. The base is considered, as Maslow would state, the physical needs of someone. These days we can get by nonchalantly through this survival phase or need. Though it is easy and easily taken for granted, most people don’t take the necessary steps to make sure their inner self is performing to their fullest potential. They do this by not exercising and not eating quality healthy food. Ask yourself, would you climb a Mount Everest when you eat burgers and totally disregard your health? I don’t think so. So, it would make sense that if you were to have the most fulfilling life then you must be as healthy as possible. It will become clearer as I explain myself more.
So people get by the physical phase of the mountain half assed and they have high hopes of achieving the top. The next phase that I introduce is Social/Relationship. You must have a good support group of friends, family or lovers that you can absolutely trust to help you in dire situations. Imagine again, that you pass the first phase of the mountain and now you are onto the steeper, more challenging part. Without a group of friends supporting your climbing and say a friend spotting you, you are going to have a hard time going further. What if you had a person who did not support what you did and every time you did something they negatively responded. You would have less courage to do it and because you trust that person you would believe them. Also without someone with you, you become lonely and easily irritated. Most climbers who scale Everest do so with a group of highly trusted friends.
If you have a support group of friends and the Social/Relationship phase is going well you move onto Self-Esteem, slightly more challenging then the last. You start to evaluate yourself, what your purpose is, confidence, other’s perception of you and your reputation. As Maslow states “Satisfaction of the self-esteem need leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, capability and adequacy of being useful and necessary in the world. But thwarting of these needs produces feelings of inferiority, of weakness and of helplessness. These feelings in turn give rise to either basic discouragement or else compensatory or neurotic trends. An appreciation of the necessity of basic self-confidence and an understanding of how helpless people are without it, can be easily gained from a study of severe traumatic neurosis.” You’re still climbing but you start to get tired. You assess who you are, the fame you will achieve for climbing this mountain and the strength and purpose you will intrinsically receive when reaching the top. However, I find most people stuck here in the real world. They worry too much what others think, keeping up with fads and the latest gossip. In a way that is the furthest they will ever reach because each time they reassess themselves they are unhappy. It becomes a never-ending reassessment. Even if that person achieves great fame or material possessions they are always left un-happy. But they continue to do what they do. The climber in them can’t ever get any further either because he isn’t healthy in some way. Either it is him or his wrong choice of path in climbing the previous phases of the mountain that have led him to repeat the same mistake. Eventually he becomes tired, gives up and dies unhappy because he does not reach the top.
If the person has successfully assessed themselves and does not worry about fame, materialism or what others may think of them, they advance to Self-actualization. You work on self-fulfillment. You become what you do and you strive to work on your weaknesses to become a better person. The climber inside of you does the same thing. He needs to realize what he has been doing so far and be all he can be to reach the top as this part of the mountain is the hardest and the fatigue is setting in. Because you are aware of yourself you have more time to think about and come up with creativity.
Creativity leads me to my next two phases Drive/Passion and Truth Beauty. Most of you have maybe heard second hand the torture one must endure physically and mentally to run a marathon, well that holds true, I’m sure, with climbing Mount Everest. You have to have mental toughness to achieve and passion to keep being successful at whatever you do and to reach the ultimate part of life. But along the way you notice that all of this work has been the most beautiful experience you have had. And that everything you see now looks brand new almost like everything has a hidden beauty that might have gone without noticing before. No challenge really can step in your way because you can peel the skin on everything and look inside. Everything is beautiful. Pieces of gravel you might have kicked before gleam with brightness and purity. The protrusion in the wall juts out in a way that brings chills down your spine and you look at everyone as if they are all good people with good intentions. You are able to value things that others can’t, and notice how much they are missing out. While people are still struggling with themselves, you have achieved the top and are able to enjoy the beauty of nothing as nothing is beautiful. You’ve come to the realization that life is meaningless but so amazingly beautiful and fulfilling. Too much of a good thing is bad for you but nothing of the most beautiful thing is the best for you.
Safety- We all need a safe haven in a shelter and from parents as children.
Relationship— We need relationships from lovers, family and friends to enjoy life.
Self-esteem— We seek fame recognition, reputation, materials and evaluate ourselves.
Self-actualization- We become what we do. Painters have to paint and musicians have to create music. They hone their craft for themselves.
My take on Maslow’s model is a little different and I introduce a metaphor of a person climbing a mountain. Instead of having five human needs I have listed six needs that lead to a total awareness of self and harmony with the world. It would be transcendence, almost a total meaning of no meaning in life. My system is similar to Maslow’s but includes some necessary needs. Those needs are Physical, Social/Emotional, Self-Esteem, Self-Actualization, Passion/Discovery and Truth Beauty all leading to divine transcendence. Think of it like this there is a mountain in everyone that is miles high and at the top is total contentment, which everybody strives to achieve. Inside each person is a climber that is an embodiment of themselves. That climber eats exactly the way the person does, sleeps the same—everything. However, the climber has trouble climbing the mountain because of certain needs are not being properly handled by the person.
The base of the mountain is mammoth in circumference, is the tallest and is fairly shallow in angle. The base is considered, as Maslow would state, the physical needs of someone. These days we can get by nonchalantly through this survival phase or need. Though it is easy and easily taken for granted, most people don’t take the necessary steps to make sure their inner self is performing to their fullest potential. They do this by not exercising and not eating quality healthy food. Ask yourself, would you climb a Mount Everest when you eat burgers and totally disregard your health? I don’t think so. So, it would make sense that if you were to have the most fulfilling life then you must be as healthy as possible. It will become clearer as I explain myself more.
So people get by the physical phase of the mountain half assed and they have high hopes of achieving the top. The next phase that I introduce is Social/Relationship. You must have a good support group of friends, family or lovers that you can absolutely trust to help you in dire situations. Imagine again, that you pass the first phase of the mountain and now you are onto the steeper, more challenging part. Without a group of friends supporting your climbing and say a friend spotting you, you are going to have a hard time going further. What if you had a person who did not support what you did and every time you did something they negatively responded. You would have less courage to do it and because you trust that person you would believe them. Also without someone with you, you become lonely and easily irritated. Most climbers who scale Everest do so with a group of highly trusted friends.
If you have a support group of friends and the Social/Relationship phase is going well you move onto Self-Esteem, slightly more challenging then the last. You start to evaluate yourself, what your purpose is, confidence, other’s perception of you and your reputation. As Maslow states “Satisfaction of the self-esteem need leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, capability and adequacy of being useful and necessary in the world. But thwarting of these needs produces feelings of inferiority, of weakness and of helplessness. These feelings in turn give rise to either basic discouragement or else compensatory or neurotic trends. An appreciation of the necessity of basic self-confidence and an understanding of how helpless people are without it, can be easily gained from a study of severe traumatic neurosis.” You’re still climbing but you start to get tired. You assess who you are, the fame you will achieve for climbing this mountain and the strength and purpose you will intrinsically receive when reaching the top. However, I find most people stuck here in the real world. They worry too much what others think, keeping up with fads and the latest gossip. In a way that is the furthest they will ever reach because each time they reassess themselves they are unhappy. It becomes a never-ending reassessment. Even if that person achieves great fame or material possessions they are always left un-happy. But they continue to do what they do. The climber in them can’t ever get any further either because he isn’t healthy in some way. Either it is him or his wrong choice of path in climbing the previous phases of the mountain that have led him to repeat the same mistake. Eventually he becomes tired, gives up and dies unhappy because he does not reach the top.
If the person has successfully assessed themselves and does not worry about fame, materialism or what others may think of them, they advance to Self-actualization. You work on self-fulfillment. You become what you do and you strive to work on your weaknesses to become a better person. The climber inside of you does the same thing. He needs to realize what he has been doing so far and be all he can be to reach the top as this part of the mountain is the hardest and the fatigue is setting in. Because you are aware of yourself you have more time to think about and come up with creativity.
Creativity leads me to my next two phases Drive/Passion and Truth Beauty. Most of you have maybe heard second hand the torture one must endure physically and mentally to run a marathon, well that holds true, I’m sure, with climbing Mount Everest. You have to have mental toughness to achieve and passion to keep being successful at whatever you do and to reach the ultimate part of life. But along the way you notice that all of this work has been the most beautiful experience you have had. And that everything you see now looks brand new almost like everything has a hidden beauty that might have gone without noticing before. No challenge really can step in your way because you can peel the skin on everything and look inside. Everything is beautiful. Pieces of gravel you might have kicked before gleam with brightness and purity. The protrusion in the wall juts out in a way that brings chills down your spine and you look at everyone as if they are all good people with good intentions. You are able to value things that others can’t, and notice how much they are missing out. While people are still struggling with themselves, you have achieved the top and are able to enjoy the beauty of nothing as nothing is beautiful. You’ve come to the realization that life is meaningless but so amazingly beautiful and fulfilling. Too much of a good thing is bad for you but nothing of the most beautiful thing is the best for you.
