Re-inventing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. http://visual.ly/motivation-and-self-actualization
Are you burnt out from working, and only barely able to pay for your housing, transportation, food, and other "needs"? Do you ever wish you had more time for personal growth and enrichment? Does most of your resources, time and effort go into serving your basic needs for shelter, food, security and comfort with hardly any time to pursue your dreams and follow your true heart's plan? I think many people will be able to relate to this article: No Limits to Happiness Many of us are forced to spend most of our resources and time meeting our lower level needs such as housing, transportation, food, and clothes. In today's world it seems that only the elite get the opportunity to satisfy higher level needs (which are non-materialistic) such as our need to self-actualize - to have the freedom to pursue our interests and dreams. The rest of us are stuck still trying to meet our lower level needs. Call me an idealist, but I think it's really sad that people have to pay such a ridiculously high price just to satisfy one of their most basic needs - shelter. I would like to share the TED talk below in relation to this topic. Jon Jandai shares with us his struggles about meeting his lower level and higher level needs, and how he found the simplest solution. He makes it sound so easy.
The economic system is partly to blame for the deprivation of higher level needs that so many of us are faced with. It is profitable for our economy if people get stuck in meeting their lower level needs.However, it is also the people who have accepted their main role in society as consumers, and who are brainwashed to "need" more and more expensive types of lower level needs such as a big house, a fancy car, expensive clothes and food. It seems that some people are never satisfied and spend their whole lives just meeting their lower level needs because of materialism. However, I also know a respected few who are willing to sacrifice some lower level needs or opt to live simply and with less things in order to meet their non-materialistic higher level needs. You can either buy a nice car to bring you from point A to B in full comfort and style or you can use the money to travel the world and enrich your life and the lives of others in ways you would have never imagined.
