Simple Living - High Thinking

What is the source of all happiness? Is it money? Or is it power, name, fame and recognition? Nothing appears to be true as most of the wealthiest, famed and powerful people are no happier than the ordinary people. If it is true, why do we all strive to achieve these material goals to achieve happiness?

The answer seems simple. We always crave for what we do not possess in the anticipation that once we get what we want, we should feel happy. This concept seems to have originated from our basic desire to satisfy our hunger. When you are hungry, you desperately seek food. You feel satisfied once your stomach is full, yet the craving returns after a few hours once the food is digested.

No animal except man has understood this simple truth. Hence man did not feel satisfied after satisfying his hunger as he learned that the craving will come back. Hence he anticipated the future by using his thought, and started cultivating and storing food and grains so that he would be free from the necessity of satisfying his basic need. Once he had taken care of his basic needs, he started thinking high about larger things of life like the understanding of the material world and even thoughts of God or the Creator of the universe.

Jesus said that a man will not live for bread alone. It is because man is the most superior creation of the world and he cannot be satisfied by merely living to eat and reproduce. He eats only to live. The goal of his life is to think high, as high as the thoughts of God.

Then, why most human beings are not happy? The answer seems to be that they fail to follow their nature and seek happiness in satisfaction of their basic instincts just like any other animal. In order to feel happy he has to think high, not only for the human being but also for all the creations of the universe. It is only by developing proper understanding of the world that we can feel happy as happiness can come only if we are able to know the minds of the people and understand the reason for their action. Improper understanding of the world causes frustration since we always find that actions of other people to be wrong and unreasonable.

Creativity

Right knowledge is necessary to understand the world. Yet knowledge is often available in the form of written words which are created in a particular context. Since the world changes with every passing moment and we never deal with the same people and the same situations again, we can never use old knowledge to solve new problems. We have no option but to create new knowledge for ourselves taking help from the old knowledge. The new knowledge must be useful for understanding the present world and solve the present problems. This capability of human beings to create new and useful knowledge is often called "Creativity".

Creative people not only solve their own problems but they also help other people and societies in solving their problems. The world always seeks people who can create new knowledge for the present realities of the world based on the knowledge of the past. These people are able to create knowledge as they can understand the secret of knowledge and modify it to suit changes in time and values.

Creative people are capable of thinking beyond the obvious, beyond the written words of literature or beyond the senses? What are the necessary conditions for creating such thoughts which are relevant yet eternal? How do people create such thoughts? What motivates them to create new thoughts? How can one become such a high thinking person?

Maslow's Law of Hierarchy

This theory was best expressed by Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". The basic concept is that the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus once all the needs that are lower down in the pyramid are mainly or entirely satisfied.

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