A need to express myself. I miss it. I need it.

I learned something in class called “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. It says there are five fundamental needs of a human being.

Physiological needs, security needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.

It’s an idea worth pondering over, isn’t it? What do we as people with bodies and minds and feelings and souls, need to have a fulfilling life?

Physiological needs are our most basic needs, a need to breath, to eat, to sleep, drink, sex, and excretion. It’s our primal needs.

Security needs are next up in the hierarchy. We have a need for personal security, financial stability, health and well-being, and a safety net against accidents/illnesses. If these needs are not satisfied, we will tend to override other needs to satisfy security needs.

Of particular personal interest is social, esteem, and self-actualization needs.

A person needs friendships, don’t they? They need to be loved. A sense of belonging, the safety net that saves us from our darkest moments with the realization that there is someone who loves us. You. Me. We all need that. We long for it, don’t we? The feeling of being loved. To me, it’s a humbling yet empowering feeling that fills my soul belly with warmth and gratitude. I long for it.

A person also needs to be respected. With respect from others comes respect from self, with that comes confidence and self-esteem, and that releases you from doubt and opens you to take steps towards self-actualization. I have to think about where I stand on this level of needs. A need to be respected. How many people out there respect me? Why? Who respects me? Who do I respect? Do I respect myself? What is it about others that I respect that makes me respect them? What is it about me that earns respect from others? It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone talk about respect.

There are many qualities that I respect in people. Determination and consistency. Those two traits, I value highly, and people whose actions reflect those traits earn my respect. Like my friend John for example. He’s very focused on certain aspects of his life. When you take a strong desire to achieve something and combine it with consistent self-discipline, it creates a recipe for change. Someone who consistently adheres to personal morality also deserves my respect. Taking initiative to help others, being able to learn lessons from mistakes, having the grace to find beauty even when they’re stuck in a rut, all of these characteristics earn my respect. Each individual has their own frame of traits they hold to be important, shaped by their pasts.

Take a moment to think about the traits you value in people. How well do you align with these traits? If you reflect the traits you value, then it is likely that you have a good level of self-respect and self-esteem. We should always be striving to be a person we can respect. “What a man can be, he must be”. The physiological, security, social, and self-esteem needs lead us to self-actualization needs.

It’s a need to be everything we can be. To become everything that one is capable of becoming. To be the super-version of you. Imagine the most productive, creative, happy, energetic version of yourself. The potential is limitless. And it’s possible to be that person. Perhaps you’ve already felt it before, the self-empowerment you feel from being in total control of yourself and your life. I want that. Don’t you want that? To be all you can be? Yes. Getting there seems to be a whole another story.

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