In part one, I wrote about how selfishness drives our behaviour. In this part, I will focus on the needs that we try to fulfil through our “selfish” acts.
Humans have fundamental physiological and psychological needs. Fulfilling these needs drives our behaviour.
The hierarchy of human needs
Our needs are sometimes put in a loose hierarchy developed by Maslow. That is, the most important needs tend to be prioritised first until a certain “level of need” is met, before spending time on others. This level of need is different for everybody.
- Physiological needs – food, water, air, shelter, and sleep
- Security – resources, health, stability
- Love and belonging (Connection) – Friendship, intimate relationships, family
- Esteem – Status, recognition, relevancy, strength
- Autonomy – freedom to choose your own path
Not everyone follows this hierarchy
To reiterate, not everyone follows the same hierarchy. Life experiences and the environment can prioritise certain needs first. The only somewhat exception is physiological needs – we can only go for so long without meeting them before dying. This is why you will never be distracted about the past or the future if you are nearing the end of your breath underwater. This is why hunger or thirst can make us irritable and lose concentration.
Because the lack of these physical needs for even a short amount of time can trigger fight and flight conditions, the world has put a lot of emphasis on making sure access is relatively easy. We farm and trade food to have consistent and reliable supply. All houses have taps with drinkable water and most people have access to a bed within some form of shelter. We can therefore focus on other needs and also to have free time to cater to some of our wants.
Everyone has different levels of these needs
One of the problems with giving advice on the internet, is that general advice can often be misleading for people in specific situations. For example, telling someone to prioritise connection when they live in a dangerous part of the world is silly. Not recognising that someone who has ran away from war may need a much higher need of security is detrimental to helping them. Similarly, some teenagers and young adults have had their security need met by their parents their whole life and so they cannot relate to others who don’t have that. “Go travel and see the world, find yourself”. Easy to say when you can always go back and live with your parents even if you have no job or money. Not so easy when you don’t have that support system.
Modern world has made it difficult to meet our psychological needs in a healthy way
Unfortunately, the modern world has really made it complex to meet our psychological needs. And while they are somewhat less urgent than the physical, not meeting those needs in good time leads to a lot of serious problems with our health and mentality.
The 4 psychological needs are security, connection, self-esteem, and autonomy. The reason why so many of us are broken is because we do not have the awareness of what psychological need we are missing or the unhealthy ways we are meeting them. Just like you can eat a healthy balanced diet or fill up on chocolate and chips every day to fulfil hunger but miss out on vital nutrients, you can easily do damage to yourself by not meeting your psychological needs in a healthy way.
For example, if you had very strict parents growing up, you may take drugs or rebel against them in other unhealthy ways to feel autonomous. Instead, you should identify the need for autonomy and figure out which decisions you want to be able to make yourself and create boundaries with anyone in your life to enable that. Sometimes compromises should be made, but only with the knowledge that you can still feel your need for autonomy can be fulfilled. If you let someone take away your freedom by loosening your boundaries, so instead you go and take drugs and party every weekend to feel free again, then you are fixing the need in a unhealthy manner. The reason it is unhealthy is that creates short spikes in feeling fulfilled but then long periods of unfulfillment until the next party. It also blocks you from fulfilling other needs, and if it continues for too long, can cause addictions and trauma.
Of course, no one picks their parents or has control over life circumstances and sometimes when we become adults, we must unlearn unhealthy habits and replace them with healthy ones. But that’s part of life and growth.
Self-esteem and sex – a bad combination
A common story with self-esteem is to use sex as a means of fulfilment. The problem is that two things happen
1) You need more and more sex to fulfil the need because it’s your only source of self-esteem. However, it is physically impossible to get enough sex to continuously fulfil this need in this way so it creates a toxic cycle.
2) Using sex to fulfil self-esteem makes it more difficult to fulfil your need for connection.
These two points underpin the most common reason people become stale. Instead of finding healthy, reliable sources of fulfilment for their psychological needs, people cycle through them. So, if you have a sudden need for connection. You get into the first relationship that gives you that feeling. Then once that need gets met, whether the relationship is healthy or not, you have a sudden urge for autonomy and self-esteem, then you go and party and flirt with others for the self-esteem boost. This can create a disconnect with your partner until the relationship crashes and the need for connection becomes stronger again. The cycle then repeats with a new partner.
Healthy sources of fulfilment
To get out of toxic or stale cycles, you need to identify healthy sources of things that quench your psychological needs. For example, you can meet your need of autonomy by leading projects. Whether it’s at work, for a hobby, business, sport. Or by ensuring that certain decisions in your life are made solely by you. You can fulfil self-esteem by becoming very good at something so that your views are relevant and respected. If you become disinterested in it, you need to find a new skill to master.
To fulfil your need of security, you should have at least 6 months of savings to meet your physical needs without having to ask for help from anyone. To fulfil your need for connection, you can have a few close and trustworthy friends, have a good relationship with your direct family, and have an intimate partner. If your only source of connection comes from your partner, you become dependent on them which can often harm the relationship and thus leave you with an empty hole for connection. This in turn can mean you stay in toxic relationships in desperation.
Self-awareness of your needs is vital to growth
I had a friend recently tell me they recognise they use sex for self-esteem so I asked them what plans they had to grow in other areas of life where they can fulfil this need. My friend didn’t really know. It wasn’t a case of “I can try Y or X”. It was a total lack of ideas. No dreams of becoming really good at some creative skill or starting a business or even a career path. Not attempting to fix this unhealthy way of fulfilling psychological needs may not seem that bad, until you realise that the longer you live this way of life, the harder it is to get out of it. You start to believe that the only way to fulfil a need is through that method, so you justify doing toxic things.
“It’s not my fault I am this way and therefore I’m justified in doing whatever it takes to fulfil this need” This is the subconscious way our brain gets us to behave in unhealthy ways.
How to get out of cycles of unhealthy fulfilment
Once you realise that you are fulfilling a certain need in an unhealthy way, you need to do two things:
- Dissociate the unhealthy actions with the fulfilment of that need
- Identify and start doing healthy actions that fulfil that need
First part is often very difficult, because if it’s the only source of fulfilment you currently have, then removing it is going to require extreme restraint and will power. Instead, it can be easier to first acquire different sources of healthy fulfilment before getting rid of the unhealthy ones.
This doesn’t have to take long, sometimes as soon as good alternatives are found, the unhealthy habits lose their power over you. However, you should still do the work to complete step 1. Otherwise, if for whatever reason there is a temporary lapse in fulfilment from healthy needs, the unhealthy ones can come back and cause you to do something you didn’t want to, or even get back into a negative cycle. This can be done via therapy and/or by repeatingly finding alternative, healthy sources whenever even the thought of unhealthy ones comes up.
What if I don’t know which actions will be a healthy source of fulfilment?
Trial and error. The biggest misconception is that humans know instinctively what we like and what we don’t. It’s usually more like taking a good guess based on how you feel, and then figuring out if we like it or not. If not, then we make the next best guess. The more we do this, the more experience we get and the easier it is to hit the “right” way the first time for other needs.
But are unhealthy sources of fulfilment really that bad?
It’s a genuine question. Does it really matter how you fulfil a need, so long as it feels good and gives you pleasure? You could say the same about eating, why should you not eat burgers and pizza every day? Or why should you not smoke, drink alcohol and do drugs to oblivion? Some people do this and seem to live long lives full of pleasure.
The answer lies in a combination of all 4 psychological needs of growth. Fulfilling our needs with unhealthy sources often slows down or completely negates the ability to fulfil other needs. So over time, you will start to feel unhappy and unfulfilled but will not be able to identify why given that you feel in general you have your life together and have lots of pleasure.
Also, humans need variety of healthy sources. And given that unhealthy sources make it more difficult to diversify, then that either leads to feelings of helplessness or addiction.
For example, if your partner is extremely controlling and does not allow you to meet anyone else unless they are there too, then they become the sole source of connection. Which can feel like a prison and impact your need for autonomy. If the main reason your partner does that is his fear that you may cheat, it doesn’t work too well. The reason is that if people have a certain need restricted, they are more likely to search for any way to get it fulfilled, including cheating. Whereas if the partner didn’t control their ability to have friends, that connection need would have been met from the friends and they wouldn’t resort to cheating.
Sometimes, people can abuse trust in relationships due to lack of fulfilment of other needs
Another reason why unhealthy sources of fulfilment are bad is because it impacts our relationship with friends, family, and partners. They can identify when toy are doing something that isn’t good for them or the relationship but they have limited ability to help you change if you don’t want to yourself.
For example, some people misuse trust to cheat or otherwise harm their relationship because of self-esteem or autonomy reasons. If you don’t have healthy sources of self-esteem, then you may use flirting, emotional or physical cheating to have that need fulfilled. If you don’t have healthy sources of autonomy, then you may have commitment issues because you feel that your only source of freedom (the ability to choose your path) is taken away through a relationship.
So if you have strict parents, a micromanaging boss, manipulative friends that abuse your kindness, then you will struggle to get into committed relationships because no matter how good it is, relationships are naturally restrictive. No matter how open and understanding we are, no relationship can survive without boundaries.
This is why couples where both partners are capable of dealing with their baggage (because everyone has baggage) and support each other are often more likely to stay together. If there is a disconnect, one person could grow quicker than the other and if the other doesn’t have the drive to try and catch up, it can create compatibility issues.
Overcompensation of needs
The reason some rich and “successful” people seem so unhappy and unfulfilled, whereas some relatively poor people seem to have “everything figured out” and genuinely seem happy and full of life, is due to overcompensation of needs.
This is when for whatever reason, you are neglecting certain needs but compensating by getting a high dose of another need.
For example, that rich guy who has autonomy and self esteem filled to the brink because people keep giving them praise about how their business is genius and how they are so successful? If he doesn’t have any friends who like him for who he is outside of his financial success, he may be extremely lonely. If his wife only likes him because of the things he can afford her, and his friends all seem to use him for networking and money, then he is not getting enough healthy sources of connection. He overcompensates by striving to get even more self-esteem and autonomy, but the effects are short-lasting and unsatisfactory. Instead, he needs to figure out how to build true connections with his friends, partner and family. This could mean cutting some people out of his life, and trying out new activities or hobbies that may be difficult at first.
On the other hand, the just about living paycheck to paycheck guy who has a few high-quality friends with which he does hobbies every weekend, a family that isn’t perfect but has good roots and traditions, and a partner that has her healthy needs met herself and they have common goals and regular date nights to keep the spark going? He is on top of the world. Sure, he may prefer to have a little bit more security and self-esteem but because he has the base ground covered, he is significantly better off than the “successful” rich guy.
Feminine and masculine energy in relation to the need of connection
The polarity between masculine and feminine energy is important to note in the connection need. Specifically, the connection between partners. Most females have their core in feminine energy, and most males have their core in masculine energy. That’s not to say they don’t need to have the opposite, it’s that they should have both skills and know when to use them, but to predominantly focus on their core energy.
The reason for that is that the modern world has made it very easy for men to fall in the trap of becoming too feminine and lacking leadership, confidence, protection, and strength skills, while also trapping women into losing their feminine energy and becoming too masculine, where they need to take care of everything in both their jobs and the household. This lack of polarity is causing the spark that initially made connection with our partners to be so strong to slowly die out. And if we don’t feel connection with our partner, even if we have other sources of healthy connection, it can create a lack of fulfilment for that need.
This is why couples need to be aware of these things and ensure they are allowing the masculine-feminine polarity to function.
For example, in a couple where the female has a feminine core and the guy has a masculine core, the man should know to take leadership in most decisions without delegating them to his partner. That’s not to say that he is deciding on his own. He is just taking the first step in letting his girlfriend or wife know what he wants. The woman on the other hand, should often let their boyfriend or husband make the first step. If she disagrees with his proposal, she should suggest her alternative views. That way a decision or a compromise is made based on the needs of both, but the energy polarity that drives attraction is maintained.
The above is very generic, there are definitely situations where the roles are reversed even if the core energies are such. This is totally fine and is why both genders need to have a good awareness and skill of both masculine and feminine energies.
People sometimes get offended when feminine energy is encouraged to women as if feminine energy is somehow weaker or less important in the world. This is not true. Some extremely feminine women are the strongest, toughest women in the world. They just know what their core is, and they use that strength to ensure that their partner will achieve the very best they can, which in turns makes it easier for her to achieve her best. It’s a mutual support system that works best when the polarity works with them rather than against them. Instead of fighting with the biology of polarity, it would help most people to embrace it in their life. Because if the decision comes down to ‘what is fair’ versus ‘ what is best for both of us in our relationship’, then what would you choose?
Some women do have masculine core energy and some men do have feminine core energy. That’s not a problem as long as they identify that they are so. It can be a little bit harder to find a partner as this set of polarity is rarer, but it works just as well so long that the partners can keep the polarity in check. If you start acting within the energy that isn’t your core for too long, it will start to kill the connection with your partner.
