Monday, November 22, 2010

Self actualization


The best motivation comes from within. Today’s civilization is the result of tireless internal motivation of human being. There are numerous motivational theories, but all come into conclusion that higher level people are always driven by self motivation. Dr. Abraham Maslow has described that as self actualization need. In the year 1943, in his famous article, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Dr. Maslow had analyzed the critical human behavior, and came into conclusion that, human being is driven by five levels of needs. If these needs are gradually satisfies from bottom to top, then human being become motivated. These needs are respectively physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self actualization needs. According to Maslow these needs form a pyramid, where physiological needs are at bottom level and self actualization needs are at the top.
The people with self actualization needs are always self driven. Self actualized persons do not need external sources of motivation. As per Maslow, self actualized needs comes when all other level of needs are satisfied. But also, this is not absolute. Sometimes, there are hierarchical alterations too, depending on circumstances. But Maslow had expressed his theory on a general platform, so it gives a generic insight of human behavior.
But if we look into the human civilization, we can find many extra ordinary persons, for whom self actualization is one of the most important factors. They act as a mutation power for human civilization. Mutation is actually a parallel theory of Darwin’s evolution theory. Darwin’s evolution theory stressed on continuous improvement of life, whereas mutation theory believe that, life’s evolution is not continuous, rather it is continual. There are some sudden jumps of species, after some continuous shifts. This jump breaks the continuity of life process, but it helps in sudden improvement of evolution. Similarly, self actualized persons have always helped in the sudden jump for human civilization. The activities of self actualized persons have pushed the human civilization suddenly, time to time. They are the exceptions of Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory. But Dr. Maslow had also acknowledged that, only a few percent of people in the world can reach the level of self actualization.
Life of self actualized persons is just like a river, which flows continuously, and finds it path to reach the destination even if restriction comes in its way. The self actualized persons are like a dawn lit mountain which stands high and enlighten despite of all conditions. The inner soul of self actualized persons is as deep as an ocean. The beauty of self actualization is like the water fall which scatter its beautiful mist all around when its fall from high altitude. The aesthetic of self actualization is like rare orchid which makes everybody happy with its glittering colour.

According to Eric Maisel:
Self-actualization is a lovely word that stands for our desire to make the most of our talents. Instead of using only a small portion of your total being, just enough to get by, you make the conscious decision to employ your full intelligence, your emotional capital, and your best personality qualities in the service of growth and good works.
We know that we’d love to make use of our potential and make ourselves proud. Self-actualization is the way you become your real self and your best self. You will do yourself a great service if you treat self-actualization as one of your most important meaning opportunities.

1 comment:

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