The non negotiables

Air, food and water.

These are what we are taught in science classes back in the schooldays of what a human being needs to survive. Looks simple, easy and too good to be true, right?

But in fact, what a human being needs in order to develop in a healthy way and thrive are way much more than that. Many people, including parents, teachers, family friends and even the child himself or herself are gaslit and deluded into believing that having just the physical basic necessities of food, clothes, shelter, toys, education are enough for a human being to trudge on this earth in a happy and healthy way.

Because of that, the wellbeing of many people out in the world today continue to decline despite their physical needs abundantly met and satisfied yet deprived and starved at many other levels.

The truth is: As a person, we have needs. In order to thrive and be healthy on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level, we need these needs to be met.

We need to be made to feel a sense of belonging. We need to feel as if we have an important place within the family/social group. We need to feel taken responsibility for. We need to be protected from harm on all levels. We need to feel a sense of security. We need to have stable, consistent and secure attachments. We need to have proper nutrition. We need good quality sleep. We need social interaction and stimulation. We need to feel valued and wanted and loved. We need to feel seen, heard, felt and understood. We need our boundaries. We need play and exploration. We need physical activity. We need a sense of empowerment. We need to feel received. We need encouragement. We need to be enabled. We need communication. We need guidance. We need physical affection. We need emotional support. We need a deep sense of connection. We need attention and engagement from people in our lives. We need to feel like a priority. We need a sense of accomplishment. We need consistency and structure and predictability. We need empathy. We need validation. We need respect. We need to feel that others are committed to us. We need quality time. We need words of affirmation. We need acts of service. We need gifts. We need acceptance. We need freedom to express. We need honesty and openness. We need companionship. And this list could be longer.

When we say needs, they are non-negotiables. Without them, we starve on the levels that the need is meant to satiate. And when we starve, we cope with that pain in very unhealthy ways. We fall into addictions. We become mentally ill, emotionally ill and physically ill. We suffer from not having healthy relationships with people. And many even die or resort to suicide.

Wealth cannot satisfy all needs

We often have the misconception that coming from a wealthy home will guarantee all your needs met, having to know by now that real needs of a human being go beyond just the physical. Being wealthy just means that the needs are met to a higher degree than what most people will ever experience.

Rather than just having shelter, one may have grown up in a mansion. Rather than just being fed, one may have been cooked for by a private chef. But guess what? You can still be missing the very most important things that are necessary for you to have developed in a healthy way. You may be completely emotionally neglected.

Interdependency is the key to meeting real needs of human beings

From the list of needs mentioned above, we can see that the real needs of people are multi-level beyond physical. And such needs can only come from interaction on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level with other people. Simply put, we all need people.

As human beings, we need to stop telling the lie that physical needs are more important than emotional needs. As a matter of fact, the reverse is true. There are indeed many truly poor people, whose basic necessities are a daily struggle, but whom are emotionally thriving far more than other people who have everything and more on a physical level.

Yet emotional dependency is the thing that people struggle with the very most. Because it is the thing that seems the hardest to control. It is easy to get food for our body or purchase fuel for our car on our own. Yet we do not feel we can control whether we can get someone to love us. Therefore many of us strive for independence as a way to get out of the position of being at the mercy of getting our emotional needs met from someone else. Yet that is the worst strategy to adopt if we ever want to be whole, healthy and have the full human experience.

The reality is that this universe, this world and this human society is deeply, deeply interdependent. Everyone is interconnected to one another. This interdependence is the key to having our real needs met so that we can all grow and thrive in our own individual lives and journeys.

Maybe instead of thinking how much we are in need of other people to satisfy our own needs, we can start to step out and offer our simple existence and presence for others and think of their needs first. Because with the law of interdependence, whatever we give will always come back to us. If we can hold that kind of thought and perspective, the actions from that perspective will naturally come when we interact with others. And if each and everyone of us are able to do that, creating a heaven on earth which is so safe and filled with love that people can thrive in is not impossible.

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