I want to make the world a better place. I want the world to be better today than it was yesterday, better tomorrow than it is today, better when my grandchildren are born than when my children are born. Have you ever felt that way?
The real question is: What is “better?”
We all want more food for the hungry, more medicine for the sick, more years in our lives, more life in our years. And we are really good at making the world a place of more. Today there is more than there was yesterday. Tomorrow there will be more than there was today. And I suspect that when my grandchildren are born, there will be more than when my children are born.
But is more the same thing as better?
In a previous essay, I discussed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Humans have many needs. Some are very visceral and very straightforward: we need food, we need sex. Higher up the hierarchy, they get more abstract: we need achievement, we need love. The pinnacle of Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualization, the state of being the best you you can possibly be.
More is extremely good at catering to our more visceral and straightforward needs. We have more food, more sexual stimulation, more medicine, more safety, and more comfort than anyone in all of human history. Of course we do. Simple problems require simple solutions and we have mastered simple solutions.
Meeting those needs is a critical step on the path to self-actualization.
But somehow, we also seem to have more anxiety, more depression, more hopelessness. Which means that, in some ways at least, more is worse.
So we need a better better.
In a society with many times more deaths from obesity than starvation, with twice as many suicides as murders, we face more complex problems that require complex solutions. As we set our gaze higher up the hierarchy towards self-actualization, there will be no meal that satiates the hunger for status and achievement, there will be no pill for better relationships. From a societal standpoint, it will take more study, more humility, more trial and error, and more nuance to discover those solutions.
But, as an individual, you don’t need to wait for society to find what works for society. All you need is to shift your own attention.
The bottom tiers of Maslow’s pyramid come from outside of you. And you are unimaginably lucky that society has found a way to deliver them to you on a silver platter. But the rest of your needs can only be met inside. Your status and achievement are yours to define and pursue. Your relationships are yours to nurture and develop. Your self-actualized self is unique, thus different from the self-actualized selves of everyone else.
“Focus your attention inside to find out who the best you you could be is, then do what you have to do to be that person.”
Epictetus (paraphrased)
There are many ways the world could be made better. More food for the hungry. More medicine for the sick. More years in our lives. More life in our years.
But the best way for YOU to make the world a better place is to be a better person in whatever unique way you are called to.
