The Unimportance of Importance: Releasing and Abraham Maslow
All you thought was important probably isn’t.
Well, at the top level we can see from here, anyway.
Everyone you know probably has a problem with their identity. They only think they know who they are. And they define who they are by the stuff they have around them, and what part of life’s journey they are on.
The simplicity is that they’ve always been who they are, and the rest of what they call “identity” is a bunch of add-on after-market doo-dads they don’t really need to function.
Like a pair of foam dice that are hanging from the mirror of a car. Do they really help the car run better?
All that stuff you have: do they really define your identity as a person, or help you to be all you truly can be?
Abraham Maslow held, late in his life, that a person would actually rise to the point where they defined themselves in terms of how much they helped others. It wasn’t enough to live at a constant level of peak performance. Instead, the person who was very much their own self would actually transcend “self” to live through improving the lives of others.
Now, does this make your identity go away? No, your certainty of your complete identity is very whole at that point. More whole than ever before.
And that brings up the point of empathy. Because you can be the other person and still be yourself. Like putting on a suit or a sweater. It’s not you and you know it. But you can experience it and feel what the other person is feeling. After that, you can change how you act toward them to help them with their own goals, or experiences.
Try practicing this.
It may mean you will find more material for releasing.
But that’s fun, too.
Maslow’s original Theory of Human Motivation is available in our bookstore. Another Mindset Stacking™ Guide for you.
Originally published at Living Sensical Success Campus.