Last update: February 13, 2015
Abraham Maslow published his most famous work in 1943: Motivation and Personality, in which he established the existence of a hierarchy of human needs, organizing them into a structure later known as "Maslow's Pyramid".
Maslow's theory
According to this psychologist, there are 5 main levels of needs. People, the scholar continues, will try to fulfill the higher level needs only after satisfying those of the lower level. Starting from the base of the aforementioned pyramid, we find the physiological or basic needs, followed by the needs for safety and protection, social needs, esteem needs and, at the tip, the needs for self-realization.
When people satisfy their needs (or at least feel that it is), they enter a time phase that can be considered a state of homeostasis, in other words a state of internal balance in which they can reach a higher level of happiness and / or personal self-realization.
What are the main needs of the human being today?
Many times these needs arise randomly in daily life, such as the desire to eat something (even if we are not hungry at that precise moment) or to do everything to guarantee a house in which to live or reach a certain social status; this leads us to the following question: What really is the hierarchy of needs in the modern world?
Certainly many things have changed since 1943, the present world has not yet finished adapting to the changes that occur. With each passing day, we are involved in a dizzying way by the progress of communications, by the constant evolution of technologies, so it is increasingly difficult to reach a true state of homeostasis both for lack of time and because the list of successes becomes increasingly long and difficult. to reach.
In some Asian and European countries, people, especially young people, are forced to take time to think and reflect and in many cases are encouraged to practice meditation frequently, as in accelerated modern times, it is very easy to lose contact with our inner self to listen, instead, only to the noise coming from the outside.
It is important for each individual to take the time to listen to their inner voices, as many times completely wrong decisions are made following the rush, when 5 seconds of reflection would have been enough to take the right path. Furthermore, many diseases could be prevented if the needs were fulfilled in the corresponding order, as by taking care of our physiological needs, the whole body can keep itself healthier and stronger to face everyday life.
For this reason, meditate and take your time. Learn to listen to the insights that come from within rather than the cries of the outside world; after all, the only thing that really matters is to achieve happiness and what it means to you to be happy (as this varies from person to person). Reach your goals and not those that are imposed on you; complete your personal pyramid of needs and only in this way can you achieve true balance.
Image courtesy of Moyan Brenn.
