Most people have heard of Abraham Maslow. Many diverse academic disciplines study his work--communication, psychology, business, and sociology, to name a few. But, has anyone ever heard of anything other than Maslow's hierarchy of needs? He asserts that we all have to meet the following need order. They are are physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self actualization.
The self actualization it the pinnacle; it is what everyone should aspire to. Some describe this as becoming self fulfilled realizing your personal potential. It's an interesting theory to think about. It appears at some point along the way the self actualization steps shifted and the self actualization piece was forgotten. High esteem seems to be the pinnacle for many now.
These days we are bombarded with so many advertisements. Our dreams--our full potential takes a back seat to what we are told that our dreams should be. Amazingly, people go into debt to buy the BMWs, Volvos, and Mercedes cars of (someones) dreams. They may not perform any better than something else. In fact, they all depreciate the same. But, at least we can believe that we're impressing people that we don't know or care about.
Maslow has to have been wrong. That self actualization thing is probably just a waste of time. All we need is stuff to build our esteem. Why go any further?
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