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If you’ve ever used the term, “self-actualization,” you’ve quoted Abraham Maslow. Yes, that Maslow. The one so many educators, leaders, psychologists, and CEO’s cite almost ad nauseum. As a teacher, I’ve heard so much about Maslow that I’ve stopped paying attention. Until something jumped out at me from an article I recently read.
In “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” Dr. Saul McLeod explains that jumping right to self-actualization is not going to work. And most of us understand that: certainly we must be physically safe and secure. We can’t be hungry; we can’t be lonely and exiled from human contact if we’re going to achieve big things. That makes sense. The part I hadn’t considered before, however, is that it may look like we’ve ascended beyond certain levels of the pyramid when, in fact, we’re stuck there. Or we tried to move on before we had completely met all our needs.
For instance, I have a home. It’s great and it’s paid off. My husband and I are capable of taking care of it and we can afford the costs of maintenance. But what if things were different? If the house needed a lot of repairs or we had a second mortgage and a ton of debt from it, we might not really be able to fully claim the physiological and safety needs as fulfilled. We may still be worried about a major repair we couldn’t afford or even losing the house altogether if we fell behind on our payments due to other emergencies.
Dr. McLeod points out that while the needs do not necessarily have to be met in order, they certainly can’t be skipped. Maslow himself, over the years, adapted his interpretation of the pyramid to included multi-directional movement. In other words, sometimes we fall back due to a divorce or loss of a job or some other difficulty. I have to admit, I never thought about Maslow’s hierarchy in that way. I had assumed you achieve one level and you advance. And I certainly didn’t think it really applied to my life in any way. I was sure I was fine; that I had everything I needed. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t make progress in certain areas if some basic needs were unmet. Even partially.
Now that I’ve read McLeod’s article, however, I see the very thing he’s talking about in my own life. For years I functioned adequately, at work and at home, with a baseline depression that kept me largely stuck. I would dream about a new career or vacations to unusual locales but I rarely made any of it happen. The weeks and months passed by barely noticed. Every day seemed the same: get up, go to work, come home and just get ready to do it all again. Since I wasn’t outright suicidal during any of those years, I didn’t take my depression seriously. I was low on the emotional energy totem-pole. So what?
Eventually I sunk almost too low to function at all, much less adequately. I’ve written before about the miracle of Prozac in my life and it’s still working beautifully nearly five years later. I have always credited the drug with pushing me forward but now I see it differently: Prozac fulfilled my safety and esteem needs. It gave me the security I needed before I could start making plans and taking some risks again. So yes, in a way, it is moving me along. But also, because it stabilized me, I was able to move along.
In other words, until I knew who I was and what was important to me, I couldn’t really accomplish anything. And simmering at a low but constant anxiety level meant learning who I was and what I wanted wasn’t going to happen.
My research on Prozac (and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: SSRI’s) revealed that scientists don’t really know how or why it works. Yes, it increases serotonin levels in most people who take it but researchers aren’t sure why that makes depression ebb or go away entirely. For some patients it doesn’t work at all. And dosage levels are mystifying. Some folks need very little (I was on 10 mg daily for a few years before increasing to 20) while others need a lot more. But none of the ambiguity matters to me because it works. Somehow it makes me feel whole and capable. And with those needs met, I’m ready to push myself. Indeed, I want to push myself.
Getting the “lower” needs in the pyramid met doesn’t necessarily mean one has to get therapy or take a prescription. McLeod notes that safety and esteem needs might be lacking because of a difficult relationship, a lousy job, or a crushing level of debt. Resolving those problems is essential to succeeding in the future. You may not need professional help to handle your stressors but you definitely need to pay attention to them. Just placing them on the back burner won’t work. I know; I’ve tried.
Something as simple as taking care of baser needs might seem obvious to some but I never considered it. I always figured I could soldier on despite whatever difficulties I had. Certainly I could maintain my status at work and continue to take classes and manage the home despite my depression. Or fatigue. Or family problems. But really…I couldn’t.
Unsolved conflicts have a way of muddying the psychological waters. They have a way of reducing motivation and chipping away at self confidence. In my own case, I spent a great deal of energy suppressing negative thoughts so I could handle the present moment. Many of us do that. We have to work really hard moving forward because deep down we don’t really believe we’ll succeed. Or worse: that we should succeed.
The only way to stop the chronic leaking away of one’s life force is to be sure one is in the moment. Aware of and utilizing all the talents and skills one has been developing throughout life. You can’t do that if you’re worried about whether you really deserve to be happy or if your dreams matter enough to work for. Or if you left the oven on. Worries and insecurities are worse than just distractions; they are genuine enemies to growth and well-being.
What that means for me is that now, when I am disappointed in my progress or stymied by a challenge, I look inward to see what’s really missing. Did I have an argument with someone? Do I need to make amends for something? What steps have I skipped that have led me into a corner?
I always looked at Maslow’s hierarchy as something that applied to child development when really it applies to all ages and all seasons of life. More than anything it’s a reminder that we need to take care of ourselves. Indeed, that we must take care of ourselves. We don’t send our kids off to school without breakfast or start a road trip without a full tank of gas. Why wouldn’t we prepare ourselves for success in the same way?