Maslow's Heierarchy of Needs - Social Belonging

Maslow's Heierarchy of Needs

I've been thinking a bit this morning as I've woken up about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and where I am on the pyramid. I've definitely got the basics covered.

• Physiological needs
• Safety needs

Totally nailed if I'm honest. I can eat and sleep, I'm warm and I feel safe.
The next three I think is where I can work on:

• Social belonging
• Self-esteem
• Self-actualization

I don't know exactly how I would work on them or what I need to do to get to self-actualization. It's worth me pondering these over the next few days and weeks. Maybe then I can draw some conclusions on how to improve my life.

 Social Belonging : According to Maslow, humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small.

I guess I do have that covered. I also guess that social media covered that for me a lot in the past. I used to be a social media fiend. I would post multiple times a day to Instagram stories. Sharing all sorts of mundane stuff, then check the views. What was the point in that. "Oh wow, my life is so amazing look at me" Fuck that, those days are over. I'm actually becoming more insular I rekon. I'm actually starting to care less about the wider world. I care less about social belonging on social media. I care less about Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Flickr. I really don't feel the need to share much more beyond this little blog here. But it's good to share and I'm relishing a bit of anonymity. Being online and in the spotlight of the world suddenly feels a bit creepy to me.

So how am I going to improve this area of my life? What practical things can I do to feel a belonging? Firstly I think it needs to start with my wife. She's the single most important person in my life, so if I start anywhere it should be there. Maybe I'll start a bit of a gratitude journal or something that will just improve how I think of our relationship. Maybe I'll come up with new ideas on how to improve this area of my life going forward