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Video Description
What a human being can be, they must become. That single line from Abraham Maslow anchors this lecture from Academy of Ideas on self-actualization — the drive to fulfill every possibility inside us. Sitting at the top of his hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is not about applause or status, but about mastery, inner growth, and those rare ‘peak experiences’ that reshape us. So why do so few reach it? Maslow’s answer: we keep choosing the easier pull of safety, comfort, and conformity — and then wonder why we feel empty.
Full Video Transcript
What human beings can be, wrote the psychologist Abraham Maslow, they must be.
In the early 20th century, psychologists were primarily concerned with the sicknesses that afflict the human mind.
Abraham Maslow, aware of this one-sided approach, saw it as grossly inadequate.
If the goal of psychology is not just to rid us of illnesses, but also to help us flourish,
then an understanding of what constitutes optimal psychological health is crucial.
It is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology, wrote Maslow, and now we must fill it out with the healthy half.
Maslow’s research led him to the conclusion that what demarcates the psychologically flourishing from the sick and mediocre is the ability to self-actualize.
In this video, we’ll explore what it means to self-actualize and examine why most people struggle at this all-important task.
According to Maslow, humans are driven to satisfy what he called a hierarchy of needs.
Self-actualization occupies the pinnacle of this hierarchy, and therefore we cannot begin to self-actualize until we have satisfied our more basic needs.
These basic needs include the things necessary for our survival, such as food, water, and shelter, as well as those things required for a basic modicum of psychological health, such as safety, love, status, belongingness, and self-esteem.
Only after these basic needs are satisfied can we begin down the path of self-actualization
and strive, in the words of Maslow, to become everything one is capable of becoming.
Musicians must make music, wrote Maslow. Artists must paint. Poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves.
What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.
It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially.
When we begin the process of self-actualization, mastery of self becomes our way of life.
We view our psyche as a vast unexplored terrain and are motivated to gain a greater knowledge of its inner depths.
Rather than being driven solely by wealth or status, we choose an ambitious and meaningful life mission.
life mission. As we strive to achieve our goals, we devote our energies to mastering
the necessary skills, and in the process, we actualize our latent potentials.
As our life becomes increasingly structured around the need to self-actualize, Maslow
discovered that we become more susceptible to peak experiences.
Self-actualizing people, wrote Maslow, have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again
and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder
and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others.
Peak experiences have a deep therapeutic effect and can permanently transform our self-image
and view of the world.
While they cannot be voluntarily stimulated, Maslow discovered that they arise spontaneously
in self-actualizers far more frequently than in the majority of the population, implying
that they are a byproduct of the personal growth that self-actualizers experience as
they cultivate their skills and strive to realize their potential.
Another trait shared by self-actualizers is their tendency to be free from the constricting
need for social acceptance and the obsession many people have with social comparison.
Rather than looking to others for approval or to social standards or authorities to determine
how to live, such individuals defer matters of judgment to their own conscience.
The French philosopher Montaigne, who exhibited this characteristic, captured it in the following
line from his essays,
I have my own laws and my own court to judge me, and I refer to these rather than elsewhere.”
Or as Maslow explains,
“…self-actualizers have become strong enough to be independent of the good opinion of other people,
or even their affection. The honors, the status, the rewards, the popularity, the prestige,
and the love they can bestow must have become less important than self-development and inner growth.”
With this basic understanding of self-actualization, we are left with an important question.
If all of us can, in principle, self-actualize, why do so few of us end up doing so?
Why, in other words, do most of us become more complacent, conformist, bitter and neurotic as we age,
rather than more individualized, joyous, creative and productive?
Maslow spent much time deliberating this question, and to answer it he suggested that there exist regressive forces in the psyche which inhibit growth.
We must understand, he wrote, that the dark forces are as normal as the growth forces.
While most of us will claim that actualizing our potentials is something we desire to do,
in reality we are often far more attracted by the easy path of safety and comfort.
We avoid challenges which would lead to personal growth,
refuse to face up to our fears,
and remain passive in a manner which inhibits our capacity to self-actualize.
The pull of these regressive forces places us in a dangerous position,
for if we allow ourselves to succumb to them, then over time we will pay a steep price.
Anxiety, guilt, shame, and self-hate will manifest and torture us internally.
But the presence of these symptoms does not necessarily mean that all is lost.
Rather, as Maslow suggests, if we can learn to view these symptoms not as a sign that we are ill and in need of medication,
but rather as a cry from the growth forces within, warning us that a change in our life is needed,
we will have taken the first step toward becoming a self-actualizer,
and thus one of those rare individuals who succeed in being human.
He who belies his talent, wrote Maslow, the born painter who sells stockings instead,
the intelligent man who lives a stupid life, the man who sees the truth and keeps his mouth shut,
the coward who gives up his manliness, all these people perceive in a deep way that they have done
wrong to themselves and despise themselves for it. Out of this self-punishment may come only neurosis,
but there may equally come renewed courage, righteous indignation, increased self-respect,
Because of thereafter doing the right thing, in a word, growth and improvement can come through pain and conflict.
Source: Academy of Ideas