Thursday, September 16, 2004

Maslow's Wants

The tagline for lifestylism is "creating the lives we want", which flippantly assumes that your basic needs are already taken care of. I occasionally reference Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in this context, often pointing out how lucky we are to have the priviledge of obsessing about our self-actualization.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sometimes wonder if my work - helping people identify their passions and create careers that ignite them - is frivolous self-indulgence. It's 100% about self-actualization. Then I remind myself that part of what I'm doing is throwing pebbles in the pond. And the ripples from the self-actualization of the people I touch - what they actually go out and do, and the people they impact as a result - will inevitably make a difference. And some of those ripples will make a difference in areas that are much lower on Maslow's Hierarchy.

So to the extent that self-actualization is about making a difference (I tend to believe that it is, at least in part), what might seem like self-indulgence is actually planting the seeds for positive change.

Curt Rosengren
Passion Catalyst (sm)
http://blog.occupationaladventure.com

Jeremy said...

Great comment, Curt. I absolutely agree.

Anonymous said...

mee too :) lol