Deficiency needs versus truly living life

Abraham Maslow set up a "needs" pyramid, starting with meeting physical needs (food, shelter), then safety needs, then recognition needs, then self esteem needs - and at the very top he put "self actualization needs". (See Maslow's "Hierarchy Of Needs" in  Needs.)  But he left out "just being" and doing things just for themselves, just enjoying ourselves.  But notice that the pyramid implies that we must fill our lower needs BEFORE we really are able to enjoy the higher parts of life. These are labeled as "deficiency" needs, for we "must" fill the deficiency before we get to being able to do higher level things in life.

Indeed, if we are stuck in not having filled our deficiency needs, we live in a constant state of alarm or wariness for "dangers".

If we have filled our deficiency needs, then we are free to truly live life.

Being stuck in never having solved the deficiency needs is the equivalent of living a hell on earth (at some level).  It is not a condition to be tolerated, as there is no place in life for such unhappiness.

We run around anxious (feeling not safe, dreading some danger), needy of approval (trying to fill a bottomless pit, trying to be "good enough")  What an awful way to live!

And, of course, we are, mostly, sympathetic to ourselves and our fellow human beings for their "suffering".  But it is needless suffering.  And anxiety/fear is the #1 thing to solve in life, so that we can truly live life above the deficiency driven level INSTEAD OF always trying to cope with it and making life "hard".  Life is, indeed, not hard if we solve the deficiency needs!!!!.

Of course, you have to determine what specifically is "deficient" in your individual life.  Deficiency is a condition of "not sufficient enough to be at the ok level".  It is not until we reach the "ok level" (kind of rising to the "zero" level of living life) that we begin to truly live life above the zero level and to live the bonus life.  I make this distinction since most of us have no idea when we have reached the level of "non-deficiency" in the real world.  It seems that we humans set it up to have very high "expectations" of what is "good enough" - and then we set ourselves up to always be short of such unrealistic expectations.


JOB #1 IN LIFE

Job #1 for all human beings is to solve those deficiency needs so that we can begin to truly live life. We should not put up with being in deficiency even if we think that it is "normal".  It is not to be tolerated!  Absolutely not to be tolerated!!!

You must follow this path, which includes, from a bird's eye view:

Establishing that you are already safe enough.

Establishing that you are capable of meeting what is needed in life (this is true confidence, not the "affirmation", wishful-thinking artificially created "confidence"), learning what is needed to be "life-effective"

Knowing that you have enough time to handle all that is important...


If you notice, those are all in the four necessary ingredients for happiness....

To put this another way:  You cannot be enduringly happy if you do not establish these!


WHAT TO DO

I strongly recommend that you build the base and the path to what will have you establishing these - feeling safe and capable "enough" with plenty of time to do what is important.  This is what the reading sequence will lead you to in The Only Sure Path To The Greatest Life.