All I Want is My Piece of the Pie

You may not have heard of him, but I'm sure he has worked his way into your life in some form.  His name is Maslow, and he is the psychologist who came up with what he happily penned the "hierarchy of needs and self-actualization."

Now, before I lose you with big words, please read on.  I promise I'll use smaller words. 

Any leadership training I've ever taken has had Maslow's theories as part of the course.  I'm sure you've seen it ... it's usually in the shape of a triangle, or in some cases a ladder.  At the bottom is the word "safety."  Progressively as you move upward you find the words "food," "socializing," and finally "self-actualization."  I'm sure the words change from training class to training class, but the concept remains the same.  We cannot move up to the next level, until we meet the needs of the level we're at.

For example, you can't meet your need for food until your need for safety is met. This is the equivalent of being some soft and cuddly woodland creature sitting in a darkened forest with eyes darting back and forth, and depending on your size, upward.  Once you feel safe -- that some giant carnivore with large teeth or talons isn't going to descend upon you and have you for supper, is it time to search for food.  Then, only when your belly is full can you skip gaily past the closest furry creature of the opposite sex, and presumably of the same species, to waggle your tail.  Then, after procreating like bunnies, or at least spooning a bit, can you move onward and upward and become super-furry-creature, full of oneself and self-assured of your place in the world.  That is, until some rush of wings sends you right back down to the lowest level and you dart for your little furry creature den, sit in the dark with your heart pounding, and realize you have to start climbing back up the ladder all over again.

That, in a nutshell, is the Maslow hierarchical concept.  And quite frankly, I'm sick of it. It has been torn to shreds, re-worked, re-vised, and re-booted to death.  It had also been doing us a great disservice.  Most psycho-analysts tell us its too simplistic, but does a good job of attempting to map out a person's life.  I say it masks an ugly truth. It may produce a correct understanding of the human condition, but my difficulty with it is that it doesn't tell us where we have gone wrong.  And, I believe, terribly wrong.

The other day I was driving down the highway.  There was a traffic back-up somewhere ahead and 99 percent of the drivers moved to the left to get into the thru lanes.  The other 1 percent flew past on the right shoulder to get ahead of the rest of us. I saw one car move from the far left lane across three lanes of traffic in order to get into that lane, eventually to get ahead of only three cars.

I'm sure you've been in similar situations. I'm sure those drivers passing on the right were saying to themselves, "I'm just self-actualizing.  I'm not doing anything wrong, the road is clear and there's no need to follow the rest of the crowd like sheep.  Let them get in line, I'll just grab my piece of the pie."

The problem is we live in a finite world.  It has boundaries and limitations.  The pie is only so large.  By grabbing your piece of the pie, you end up taking something away from someone else.  Some may argue, what's wrong with that?

Most of the time, people say our society is doomed.  Husbands kill pregnant wives, pop stars and celebrities kill or molest, sportsmen spit on and attack fans (and vice versa).  There are drive-by shootings, children killing classmates, spousal and child abuse ... the list goes on.  We are hard-pressed to find the goodness and dignity of humanity.

And then suddenly, we do.  An airplane crashes, and suddenly we see everyone pitching in to help each other, often at the peril of their own lives, to survive.  Years ago a plane crashed into the icy waters of the Potomac River in Washington DC.  Many accounts mentioned a man standing tall in the raging storm, helping passenger after passenger into rescue helicopters and ultimately to safety. Until one time the helicopters returned and he was gone, washed to his death for the sake of the people he saved.

And lets not forget Flight 93 that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside on September 11th.  They knew where they were headed, and instead of sitting in their seats and accepting it, they took matters into their own hands.  Was it to take their oppressors out with them if they were going to die, or was it an attempt to save a multitude of lives.  Perhaps we will never know.  Either way, these people all had one thing in common.  They started pulling together as one united community of humanity.  Why?

Back to Maslow.  They had sunk to the lowest level all at once.  They were all sitting in the dark in their little furry creature dens with hearts pounding, glad to be alive for the moment ... and wondering if they would be alive the next.  There were no thoughts of territorial rights, no gang-land machismo, no road rage, no office politics, no relationship jealousies, and no racial prejudice.  It simply boiled down to how do we survive, and reaching the understanding that the best means of survival are achieved by working together.

This is the essence of true humility, and I think the way we are supposed to live our lives.  No running and grabbing the biggest piece of pie before anyone else can.  Maybe we need more plane cashes in our lives.  Of course I don't believe that, but we do need to recognize one thing: When we attempt to become all we can be, it comes at the expense of others.

So, if we truly want to clean up the world and make it a better place, why not start with ourselves.  How?  By not getting mad when someone cuts us off in traffic.  Perhaps its a young family on the way to the maternity ward, or someone rushing an elderly woman to the airport so she can get to see her grandkids for the last time.  And even if it isn't, so what?  Maybe we should just think in terms of everyone getting home alive, and in one piece.  Maybe we should start thinking of this world as one big airplane crash, or at the very least a train wreck.  I know sometimes my life feels like that.  But maybe ... just maybe ... we should stop worrying about our piece of the pie, and start worrying about the whole pie.