Today’s quote is from a hero of mine: Abraham Maslow.
“We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings."
Maslow was the oldest son of poor Russian Jewish immigrants born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He went on to create the Hierarchy of Human Needs in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which is illustrated above. Through his groundbreaking work, he also founded an entirely new branch of psychology known as Humanistic.
“We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings."
Maslow was the oldest son of poor Russian Jewish immigrants born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He went on to create the Hierarchy of Human Needs in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which is illustrated above. Through his groundbreaking work, he also founded an entirely new branch of psychology known as Humanistic.
I’m fascinated by Maslow’s theory because as I go through life and raise a new generation, I find myself moving rather freely from level to level.
As a single woman before children, I managed to reach self-actualization albeit for a brief time. Then I had kids. As I cared for a newborn, I found myself reviewing anew our needs, beginning with the basics before climbing back up the pyramid. Shocked, perhaps mockingly so, that we had managed to keep our son alive through his first year, I managed to climb as far up the pyramid as esteem and happily on my way toward self-actualization again while attending grad school. Unfortunately, that was not to happen. Divorce intervened and once again I needed to slide down the pyramid to reevaluate my life and rebuild a new one, beginning with physiological at the bottom and then safety for myself and my child.
Now at middle age, I still struggle from time to time to maintain my footing in some of these basic levels. Though slippery as that slope may be at times, simply because of the sheer number of years I have accrued, I’m pretty well entrenched in esteem.
The question that remains for today is how do I bring what I have managed to accomplish into the higher realm of self-actualization?
As a single woman before children, I managed to reach self-actualization albeit for a brief time. Then I had kids. As I cared for a newborn, I found myself reviewing anew our needs, beginning with the basics before climbing back up the pyramid. Shocked, perhaps mockingly so, that we had managed to keep our son alive through his first year, I managed to climb as far up the pyramid as esteem and happily on my way toward self-actualization again while attending grad school. Unfortunately, that was not to happen. Divorce intervened and once again I needed to slide down the pyramid to reevaluate my life and rebuild a new one, beginning with physiological at the bottom and then safety for myself and my child.
Now at middle age, I still struggle from time to time to maintain my footing in some of these basic levels. Though slippery as that slope may be at times, simply because of the sheer number of years I have accrued, I’m pretty well entrenched in esteem.
The question that remains for today is how do I bring what I have managed to accomplish into the higher realm of self-actualization?
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