We all have things we need. The things we need land on many different levels. The way we seek to get them met and which ones vary on a scale from healthy and generative to unhealthy and toxic.
I have a couple of examples; one is a little story about a security guard at Union Station across the street from where I live. I go over there and get coffee several times throughout the week.
One of our basic human needs it to be significant. We need to feel like we’re important to others and the we matter. When we have all our needs met and we’re experiencing life at optimal levels we feel bliss.
On numerous occasions I’ve noticed that this one particular guard asserts himself and the rules that need to be complied by inside the station. Rules are good… I suppose, and there are certainly different ways to enforce them. One rule is that you can’t fall asleep in the station. Another rule is that you can’t put your feet on the couches or furniture. I won’t ruin the story with my interpretations but rather ask that you imagine what you might do to enforce these rules or how you’ve witnessed some other situation that’s similar. There are different ways to enforce or do the job and levels of healthy or unhealthy outcomes, one that creates victims and one that actually serves.
Another need we all have as humans is the need for certainty. We need a level of stability and knowing that we can depend on outcomes that are predictable. This can vary from person to person and that’s the beauty of being a human.
This one I’ll give you a personal example. Certainty can quickly turn into control and that’s one of my tendencies. I like to isolate outcomes so I know what’s happening and plan my days and life just so. I like order. The problems arise when things shift and I have an “opportunity” to be fluid and flexible. Let’s just say I need to do a lot more yoga. Furthermore, the ways I create certainty and how that involves bullshit I do to the people around me is where my schemes show up and I’m not managing my relationships in the most elegant way. Now I don’t hold a gun to anyone’s head and I don’t throw “major” fits but I can create discomfort in my surroundings.
Are you willing to take a deeper look at your needs and how you get them met?
Can you identify your schemes or tactics for how you go to war to get what you want?
Where can we have philosophical shifts in the way be get our needs met to create higher levels of peace, success, and connection?