While I was doing research on "being audacious" this morning, I stumbled on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
We were taught these in my second year of philosophy. I promptly abandoned my view of being audacious and decided to write on this pyramid as it relates to life.
Abraham Maslow in 1943 drew up a pyramid because according to him, we as human beings have a hierarchy of needs; remember that in economics, we were taught the scale of preference which basically was a list of our needs/wants in order of its importance to us.
The Maslow pyramid is not so different from the scale of preference because it is listing our needs/wants in order of how important they are to us, however, this pyramid shows us that some people's wants are other people's needs.
In his theory, when the lower needs have been taken care of, the higher needs in the hierarchy begin to emerge.
In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the first level is "Physiological" (food, water, shelter, warmth etc), my people would say, "hunger cannot be in the belly, and other concerns arise".
The second level is "Safety" (emotional and financial safety, domestic safety, safety against accidents etc), the third level is "Love and Belonging" this refers to relationships and how it impacts our feeling of well being.
The 4th level is "Self-esteem" (this is the feel-good, look-good emotion. The feeling of self-confidence and that one's achievements or contributions are being valued or recognised by other people.
At the apex is "Self-Actualization" which is the 5th and final level, this refers to a feeling of being fulfilled, leading a life of our purpose or living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it is different for everyone. Each person to their own belief of being self-actualized.
In talking about the audacity of a person to get to the 4th and 5th level, it may be mandatory to check if the other levels in the pyramid have been attained, even if it is just to a certain extent.
One of my favourite Bible verses is Isaiah 60:1 "arise and shine for thy light is come". I read this as a commandment; and would always think to myself "what is the use of arising if you would not shine"?
But reading this again in the light of the Maslow's pyramid, I have seen that this thinking of mine is faulty because we do not arise alike.
In particular, during these COVID-19 times, a lot of people are arising to hunger, loss of jobs/sustenance, loss of their loved ones, and certainly loss of whom they are. A lot of people are also forced to put up with domestic violence particularly because of the lockdown.
The people in the aforementioned category are nowhere in the psychological state of mind to be audacious about anything, they just want to exist first.
However, mere existing will require them to be audacious, to say "enough, something has to give". This, folks, is my blog this morning on being audacious.
I read something on Twitter yesterday, a 15-year-old girl was raped by her employer and she got pregnant. Of course, no one believed her (you see my usage of "of course") 😭😭😭.
She gave birth to twin boys, and yesterday was their 21st birthday. Her tweets on the sour and sweet incident ( please see attached picture) gave me the impetus to wish courage and audacity on you this morning.
Many of us are in situations we cannot help, but life has chosen us for these situations. We must not back down, we must face up to these challenges, we must not allow life to set leg for us and get away with doing that.
We must be audacious, we must milk this adventure that is life, we must articulate our desired incomes outcomes and work towards that. The alternative is not at all pleasant.
It might be an overused cliché, but it is still true "Nothing, not even tough times last forever".
And after all, "all die, na die (this is Nigerian pidgin speak for "no matter how you die, you are dead".)
And so, for the rest of us on the 4th & 5th levels, let us remember to be kind and compassionate. Some of us are on the 1st level and struggling so badly, the only viable currency to spend in this wise is kindness.
Being kind in my own mind is also being audacious.Kindness will always be relevant.
To your shining, Namaste 🙏🏾
Bibireosefowora 💘
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