Practical Philosophy: The Hierarchy of Needs

If you’ve ever had even the slightest encounter with the world of psychology and philosophy (and it’s hard not to, if you’re at least 13+), you must have read something about a guy named Maslow. Maslow’s pyramid of needs is a popular theoretical concept in psychology, which tries to encompass all human ‘needs’ under one umbrella.

The main idea is that there is an order, a specific hierarchy of the needs and wants of any human being. When one of those is missing from your life or is otherwise crippled, it leads to a state of unwellness and general disbalance. The Pyramid of Maslow goes as follows, with the first needs in the list being the most basic and crucial ones

1. Physiological Needs (food, water, sleep)

2. Safety Needs (security, roof above your head)

3. Belongingness and Love Needs (social inclusion, friendships, camaraderie)

4. Esteem Needs (prestige, honour, social status)

5. Self-Actualisation Needs (creative activities, self-development, fulfilling your dreams)

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. These rather abstract notions can seem a bit too general to be considered practical in any way. We don’t often consider how vast the human consciousness is and how many factors affect you at any given moment.

Let’s say you’re feeling rather sad right now. That may be due to a number of reasons, and if we go back to the list of needs, we can check if any of them is validated for you. Starting from the bottom of the pyramid, maybe one of your basic needs isn’t met? If you have neglected your health, fitness, or have forgotten to eat or sleep well, this could result in you feeling continuously worse throughout the day. We all know that we can survive on low sleep, for example, but if we continue undersleeping for days, our mood will decline and we would feel more and more sluggish until we finally burn out.

Then if we move one step up the pyramid, we’d reach a bit more abstract levels. The sense of safety of Level 2 can be the most basic one - a roof over your head. But it’s not usually as simple. Maybe you’re currently in your parents’ household, but you’re not feeling safe there, in cases of domestic abuse or gaslighting. Or maybe you don’t connect with this place as your ‘home’ as much anymore, and this disconnect can cause further discomfort.

You can see how most problems you have (and let’s admit it, we all have a bunch of issues at all times) can be connected to a particular level of Maslow’s pyramid. And since we know it, what do we do next?

How to implement it

This is a way to be a therapist for yourself. We can use this Maslow Hierarchy to reflect on our own experiences and to discover for ourselves what exactly is missing from our sense of comfort. It helps even more in those cases when a number of negative factors are affecting you because you can systemize your problems and tackle them one by one.

By doing this you can minimize the general sense of discomfort by dividing it into smaller chunks, knowing where each one is stemming from. Yes, today may have been a bad day at school/work, but have you had a good sleep beforehand? Maybe if you go and fix that right now, in preparation for the next day, you’d raise your chances of having an actually good day soon. Then you climb up the ladder and tackle the other problems, prioritizing those at the bottom first.

Now I know what you’re thinking - this stuff is obvious, we do it all the time anyway. Well, yes and no.

While we may be subconsciously aware whenever we feel some sort of discomfort, this does not mean our way of processing the distress is always rational. Let’s take a recent example, the ongoing pandemic (I think I’m writing in reference to it a bit too much). When the initial lockdowns came into action, many people, me included, were sure that those weeks would be hella productive, that we’d finally find the time to start those dream projects of ours. One year into it, those projects are probably still in the drafts. And it’s not illogical. Your mental health was put to a test due to the isolation, the whole historic weight of what we went through, and the worst of it all - you’re left wondering why on earth did you not utilize all that free time you got?

In my opinion, the answer lies precisely in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The fact that we were isolated for so long reduced our comfort greatly, even among the most introverted of us. I even started craving a party, even though I’m usually the last person to appreciate so many people in one place. For some, being home all the time means they are stuck with their family members, which may not always be a great thing, again, referencing cases of domestic abuse, toxicity, etc. Not being able to escape those interactions leads to a reduced feeling of safety, and thus an inability to pursue your grander goals.

All of this is to say, it’s not irrational at all to not have accomplished too much during the past year. When your more basic necessities have not been met, it’s hard to take care of the top of the pyramid. And frankly speaking, that’s a good sign. It’s a hint from your own mental state that you’re supposed to concentrate on something else right now. Yes, sometimes you need to go to work and do menial labour even if some of your needs aren’t met. But once you get home from work, you get a few hours of you-time, which you can spend implementing the Maslow Strategy, going after your most basic problems first.

Keep listening to your body and your inner monologue and try writing out a few notes whenever you feel discomfort. What is causing it? Is it something immediate and right in front of you, or is it more abstract, like a money or relationship problem? Whatever it is, write it down and whenever you can, start targeting them one by one, going from the bottom to the top.

Some words on our animal brains

As Yuval Noah Harari states numerous times in his book, ‘Sapiens’, our technology and environment have evolved much faster than we did. Our brains are not so different from those of our ancestors, and some primal reactions we have are a marking of a time lost long ago. We still feel anxiety, but this time it’s about grades and relationships, and not about that sabre-toothed tiger in the bushes. Since we can much less frequently see the reason we’re stressed out, it becomes more difficult to target them. It sometimes feels irrational to even be stressed out because of a few words on a glowing screen, but we know for a fact that those cause great stress.

So keep on talking and listening to your inner voice, and if Maslow can help you in one way or another, let him be.

If you enjoyed this article and even found it useful, here are some other things I’ve written, this article on why you need a personal blog here and today, and this one on how to gamify your life.