A friend and I went and grabbed a quick bite to eat and as always, had lots of interesting discussions. He visited our home the other night and we were discussing some of the things I have been writing about recently in regards to our personal resources and where we are spending them. It is good to have someone that enjoys these kinds of discussions with in real life too, but we don't get to meet enough to dive in deeply, though we try.
This evening we were talking about needs and wants and I was talking about our hierarchy of needs article I wrote today, and asked him the question;
If we have the first three layers of Physiological, Safety, and Love needs truly taken care of, is that enough for a good life?
And then the question comes, what happens to the two layers of Esteem and Self-actualisation if the three below are taken care of? Because, at least in my view, things like respect, status, recognition, and strength come from the layers below, which means that if these are taken care of, the fourth layer is a side-effect, not a goal. While the factors are different, it isn't an independent layer, it is an interdependent layer.
We discussed what was actually necessary for happiness and wellbeing, and focused on housing, as that is a relevant topic for him at the moment entering into a new relationship, and for me having lost employment. For most of us, our house is going to be the single largest purchase we will make, and nearly all of us will take a loan and pay a lot of interest on our house, for many years to come. However, the home is also a place where we live our lives the most and build the deeper relationships, so it is something that is worth investing into.
Is it enough just to have a roof over the head to satisfy the need for shelter?
Yes. But, that might not be enough to satisfy safety, nor facilitate our relationship needs. With a roof over our head, we start to look for more, and we start to build to help realise those next stages. Yet, at some point, we seem to have jumped over our needs for others and doubled-down on the Esteem stage, and this includes the way we build our houses. Rather than being vessels to raise a family, they are tools to raise status and earn respect.
Earn respect is a funny turn of phrase, isn't it? How often do you hear about people looking to earn the love of others? That fourth layer generally comes with the idea that we have to trade something, or behave in a particular way in order to get a return on the investment. But when people talk about the third layer topics, of love and friendship, it is something that seems to come with the expectation that nothing extra need be done, that someone should like or love us for who we are, no matter how we behave. There is an asymmetry in expressions, like there is a different denominator, and we aren't built to find the commonality.
This means that we are more likely to invest our resources into the areas that we believe we need to in order to make the gains, and not invest them in the areas where we believe we are entitled to the gains. Anyone in a good, loving relationship will likely say, it isn't easy, it takes work, and investment. Why work for a return that is going to come anyway?
Everyone deserves to be loved.
Do you think everyone deserves respect? And maybe this is part of the problem, because as a society we seem to try and provide the resources for Physiological and Safety needs, without requiring as much work to earn them. This might be a good thing in many ways, because it frees up our resources to spend on Relationships, but instead, we are skipping that step as if it is also provided, and spend on building our status and reputation. Which as I have said earlier, has been hijacked by business to provide a sense of it without needing a close-knit community - the type that provides friendship, love and intimacy.
The common wisdom is to pay attention to the little things, but perhaps what we should be espousing is to behave in ways that creates them instead. Rather than investing into being passive observers, we should be active participators in the layers that actually matter. We might have a roof over our heads, we might be relatively safe, but are we working on our relationships with the same energy we look to earn respect and status? And then, if we are looking at those relationships as a key part of wellbeing, are we behaving in ways that help others get access to that layer too?
And I think that if we were to maximize wellbeing, we'd find that no matter what we build, what we accomplish, or what we have in our possession, we would find that there is no point to any of it, if we are alone. And this means, that while we all might have a personal hierarchy of needs that require our resources to reach, we also have to be prepared to invest into others.
If we don't, we might find ourselves on the wrong side of the fence.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using INLEO
It always amazes me how deep the conversations are that you have. My friends just talk about things like hunting or cars or music. We do have some friends who we can openly talk about finances with and that is nice, but all of these existential things aren't usually on the agenda.
Why aren't they on the agenda?
I think for me in my conversations, I am pretty open and honestly curious, so people end up opening up too. I reckon there are social norms that stop us from asking questions that we think others might be uncomfortable with asking.
I don't think it's about us being afraid to broach the topics. I think it just has more to do with us having other things to talk about. I don't know I guess.
In this wild capitalist world, people try too hard to reach the level 3. Thus, I think they would not care respecting each other or self-esteem much, yet being much more selfish would continue.
I still think they largely just skip 3, and are even starting to skip other basics, focusing most effort on their good feeling and status.
I think these are pretty wild topics to have and it’s a lot of fun reading about them.
Having gone through a lot of tumultuous things in my life, for me at least, I know that it’s certainly difficult for me to make sacrifices and changes for things that I want but I don’t get. I make them and have made them regardless because it’s the right thing to do but it gets challenging at times.
I think the point towards the end is important though - not having anyone to live for is a really dismal outlook.
Do you end up putting yourself last, even if you don't want to? Sometimes I feel like I end up "martyring" myself, even if it might not be necessary.
I think that if it was just me in this life, I wouldn't live it.
If everyone deserves love, they also deserve respect. Respect mostly comes from how we treat ourselves. If we respect ourselves, others will respect us too.
At the end of the day, I don't care about respect from most people, except those I love. Respect for the most part is overrated though.
I think for me, the biggest fulfilment in life comes from investing my resources into my family and in return I get all my desired needs met.
I reckon that if we had nothing else but a good family unit, we would be pretty okay.
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I guess you cannot buy REAL love but you can earn it... or at least work hard to make sure you don't loose it because of your lack of investment into the relationship.