I remember feeling guilty about not being happy.

I was earning decent money. I had a good work-life balance.

I just wasn’t that happy.

And what made it worse is that I then felt bad about not being happy with my life.

I was focusing on the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of needs. I had safety, security, money, a steady job and other people have it so much worse.

Who am I to not be satisfied with what I have?

I finished this book Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman. It’s a very interesting read, but what really jumped out at me was that he took Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs and reimagined it.

As he does so, he does away with the pyramid. He says that has us thinking about it like a video game - tackle the first thing, beat it, forget about it. Tackle the next thing, beat it, forget about it.

But that’s not how life works. We’re dealing with all of them at the same time.

He posits that it’s more like a sailboat. A sailboat is split into two groups - the hull and the sail. 💨🌊

The hull is made up of our deficiency needs - safety, connection, and self esteem.

The sail is made up of our growth needs - love, exploration and purpose.

If you don’t have any of those deficiency needs, you’re going to be spending your time just trying to keep your head above water.

If you have your deficiency needs taken care of, that’s great. But you’re still not going to be moving anywhere.

You need the sail up, you need the wind.

While I was reading this, I realized my issue was a deficiency issue - it was dealing with self esteem.

And in particular, self-esteem as a function of self-compassion (or a lack thereof).

If I treated others the way I treat myself, I would run out of friends.

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.