After all your physical desires are met, you rise to the next level in Maslow’s hierarchy. Here you start to aspire to things that cause you so much angst because they are things no one can aptly define. How much money is enough money? How much social status is sufficient? How much prestige is guaranteed to satiate your desires? What level of education or degree of learning will fulfill you? When you think you have answered these questions, you achieve whatever amount you had in mind only to realize you are still not satisfied – – and the cycle of angst begins all over again. But every now and then in the midst of your angst, something profound happens that you never notice.
One moment you will be feeling like a failure, as if you didn’t have the power to change your life and your dreams will never come true, then somehow you realize you really need to use the bathroom. Suddenly, none of that future potentiality or lack thereof matters anymore. All you care about is relieving yourself as soon as possible. And when you get to a loo and are relieving yourself you feel such a deep sense of accomplishment, you feel as if you will never want anything else out of life. In these instances, all the angst is gone and all that is left is the necessity of dealing with the arising physical desire. Now, this is really interesting for two reasons.
First, the fact that a mere physical desire – – the need to pee or take a dump; the feeling of hunger; a persistent, nagging itch; or the urge to lie down when worn out – – so tyrannically takes over our will and momentarily redefines the source of our happiness in life raises some new philosophical questions about humans as a species and as rational beings. Imagine Maslow’s hierarchy as a swimming pool with the basic needs at the very top and our loftier ambitions at the bottom. The work of our physical needs in this analogical paradigm is to periodically yank us to the top of the water where we can get a fresh breath of animalistic satisfaction, and the consequent temporary happiness of relief, before we take another deep dive to further pursue our higher goals. As any swimmer knows, your success as a diver depends on two things, how much air you can hold in and how efficiently you utilize it when underwater. Similarly, our success at the highest (deepest) levels depends on how much we enjoy these trivial things, and how well we use that as fuel in the pursuit of our aspirations.
Second, the implications of it all are huge. They explain why someone living the simplest life beset with the deepest challenges is oftentimes much happier than those of us apparently aspiring to acquire the heavens. To such a man, each day that he manages to meet his daily needs is quite a triumph for him such that he’ll spend many a minute if not hours thanking his deity, all the while feeling so satisfied and grateful to still be alive. This opens one point of departure in our quest for happiness. It’s impossible to be truly grateful without feeling satisfied and vice versa.
To sum it up, the next time you feel as if your life is headed nowhere, just let yourself get really hungry. Then when you finally allow yourself a meal, enjoy it slowly, savoring each bite and the accompanying sentiment, that feeling of “Oh God, all I need is food. And here it is!”. In life, all we need to be happy is so little that we often overlook it and go in search of things that are ultimately guaranteed to cause us nothing but pain and misery. I promise you that you will keep forgetting this lesson time and again, but as long as you remember every now and then that you have everything you need to be happy, you shall be okay. Best of luck!
Letters from the Men's Den 