Introduction

If you had asked me what I needed in my life at 18, my list would have included food within reach, a good night’s sleep, a basketball, and time with my family.  What it took to create a happy, well-balanced life seemed both so simple and within reach.  Four years later, I cannot help but notice that what I need in my life isn’t physical at all.  After a deliberate yet unexpected journey at UNC-Charlotte and in the University Honors program, I feel prepared to navigate a successful professional future and the complexities of life because of the self-actualization that my collegiate experience has offered me, and I am excited to explore that concept throughout this portfolio.

 

Asked to put my collegiate journey in context, what struck me as I compared who I am now with who I used to be is that I felt much more self-actualized.  And, yet, while I had a basic understanding of what self-actualization was in the twenty-first century, I wanted a greater context for it.  Just as my search for actualization took me into myself, my search for understanding the origin of the concept took me back a century, giving me context that allowed me to understand my own journey even more.   

 

We have a basic hierarchy of needs.  A simple enough concept but one that I hadn’t considered before researching self-actualization and discovering the work of an American psychologist who lived during the first half of the 20th century, Abraham Maslow. Maslow emphasized the inherent goodness in people. His vision was of a table where people sat and discussed things like human nature, war, peace, and brotherhood. Maslow claimed to devote himself to developing a psychology for, as he referred to it, this “peace table”. (Hoffman)

 

Throughout his career, Abraham Maslow sought to discover how people are motivated. Ultimately, he captured his findings in the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid.

 

From bottom to top, humanity’s needs are physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Everyone begins life by looking to have their most basic needs met and, it is only after a need has been fully met or realized, that one moves forward. The first two needs, physiological and safety, are known as the basic needs. Physiological (or biological) needs include amenities like air, food, water, shelter, warmth, and sleep. Once these needs are met, safety becomes a priority. Safety needs include protection from the elements, security, order, law, stability, and freedom from fear. These needs are a bit more complex than the physiological needs, but are still relatively accessible in a country like the United States.

 

Once one’s safety needs are met, the next set of needs, love/belongingness and esteem needs are psychological in nature and are a bit more complex than the basic needs. In the category of love and belongingness, needs such as friendship, intimacy, affection and love – from a work group, family, friends, significant others – can be met. The desire for love and belonging move an individual beyond his desire to survive and into the needs for connection and relationship with others. At the next level of the pyramid, esteem needs are addressed. In this category, things like achievement, mastery, independence, status, prestige, self-respect, and respect from others can be accomplished. These needs tend to deal with personal goals and accomplishments, along with how one views himself.

Ultimately, Abraham Maslow saw self-actualization as the end goal of a life. Self-actualization includes realizing one’s personal potential, achieving self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and reaching peak experiences. According to Maslow, self-actualization is reached through personal growth and reaching one’s potential. It is paramount in the human experience to fulfill one’s purpose in life (McLeod).

 

In his research Maslow examined the characteristics of people whom he considered to be self-actualized like Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln. Self-actualized individuals accept themselves and others for what they are, exhibit an unusual sense of humor, are highly creative, feel concerned for the welfare of humanity, have a need for privacy, establish deep and satisfying relationships with a few people, and have strong moral standards. Based on the Hierarchy of Needs, these characteristics are likely a good measure to see if one is truly self-actualized, especially if that person accepts others and him or herself (Simply Psychology).

 

The desire to achieve self-actualization began for me during my time at UNC Charlotte. Before college, my physiological and safety needs were met, and I was not interested in or even aware of the benefits of becoming self-actualized. As a private person, I did not like making my opinions known, especially if the subject was controversial. I wasn’t aware of the benefits and meaning that could be found in belonging and did not have the esteem to feel comfortable talking about my feelings or viewpoints without worrying about judgment. Instead I kept everything to myself and I had trouble having deep and meaningful relationships because I chose to hide my feelings. I also rarely ventured into new situations because I wasn’t comfortable with the unknown or risks. I would never take a class about a controversial subject or put myself in a scenario that demanded significant participation on my part. Overall, I was not self-actualized in the least and, because I didn’t understand what self-actualization could offer me, I was content. Attending UNC Charlotte and engaging in what was offered to me here has profoundly changed my approach to life. Over these last four years, the experiences I have been offered and sometimes shyly chosen for myself have profoundly impacted the man that I have become. Once a person content to just have my most basic needs met, I am now a man actively pursuing self-actualization not just for my benefit but also because it might benefit others. As I look over my time at UNC-Charlotte several items stand out as artifacts of my journey to self-actualization.  They profoundly illustrate my journey through the Hierarchy of Needs and illustrate the deep shifts that have occurred in every area of my life.

 

There is a privilege to being born in the United States to a well-off family. I breathe clean air, eat at least three meals each day, have abundant access to clean and drinkable water, live in a nice, air-conditioned house, and do not suffer from any basic problems that would limit my ability to have my physiological needs met.  As a citizen in the United States, I enjoy certain freedoms and protections that others around the world may not have, giving me safety as a basic human right that not all people can access. Our established legal system protects many United States citizens from every day dangers around the world. The first two levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are fulfilled in my life. By having my most basic needs met largely because of where I live in this world and who my family is, I had the opportunity to deliberately begin my self-actualization journey at the third level: love and belongingness. And yet, it wasn’t until I realized that without changing the process that the results would stay the same that I began to care about connecting and becoming self-actualized. I realized that I could not realize my full potential unless I began the process of self-actualization.

 

For years, I struggled with forming deep relationships that were guided by intimacy, affection, and love. I was never willing to completely open myself up to another person. I was not comfortable exploring my feelings and I was too insecure to look into this aspect of my life. I suppose I was afraid of looking weak. Ultimately, however, it began to feel that the way I protected myself from love and belonging were actually a greater disservice to me than exploring the possibility (and potential heartbreak and risk) of it. And so, in 2012, I deliberately began my journey into the third level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.