eThoughts : Possessions, Needs, and Satisfaction

Possessions are necessary, as we all know. The trick is to not become some kind of possession packrat. Accumulation may seem like an important reality for a people afraid of being dispossessed, but a funny thing about accumulation is that we can find ourselves possessing a burden rather than the instruments to relieve us of burdens.

So, are our needs a burden or do we need to become unburdened? Just to use a descriptive tool, let’s employ the psychologist Abraham Maslow who proposed a five-model hierarchy of needs.

Physiological needs such as eating were the basic need, followed by safety needs, belongingness, self-esteem, and finally self-actualization. The model was controversial if for no other reason than the order was empirically difficult to verify and the definition and criteria for the self-actualization need was murky. Nonetheless, the model can shed some light on this possession thing. And as was suggested in the last post, possessions are not just tangible items. For instance, we are supposed to possess self-esteem. It’s a need. And it’s a need that can serve us well. Needs are not necessarily an ugly human frailty, though they can possess us. And that is exactly the point. If needs become the tail that wags the dog, then needs become a tyrant and we the slave. But if needs are in our service—and I don’t mean that we become the kings and queens of needs—then all is right in the world.

For instance, we need the tools and means for satisfying our physiological needs. Those are needs, as Maslow noted, that can be fulfilled, but will always return. We need another set of tools and means for satisfying safety needs. However, Maslow noted that safety needs cannot ever be fully satisfied—there is always something else that can be safer. Belongingness is clear, humans are hardwired to be social animals—we need each other. Self-esteem may start out arriving from sources outside ourselves, such as parents, mentors, and peers, but properly nurtured, self-esteem eventually becomes self-perpetuating. And then there’s this self-actualization thing. I translate that as being free, which doesn’t mean from needs, more like being free from needy. The former is the state in which we’re not in our packrat minds, dragging around everything that might be of some use sometime, the latter state is one of being whining and clingy, like we can never be fulfilled. Let’s face it, love and relationships are not instruments or tools to put in our shopping cart, they’re states of being best enjoyed when allowed to air.

Perhaps it is being needy that is the burden—the bad. But the upside is that can birth the need to become unburdened. That seems like a good need. Maybe proper needs themselves are the thresholds into satisfaction rather than shackles. Certainly it will require some attention and maintenance to keep the distinction between satisfaction and shackles straight, but that’s the beauty of awareness—and of being human.

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