It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.
Interpretation
Understanding our true desires is challenging and uncommon.
Abraham Maslow highlights the complexity of self-awareness and the difficulty individuals face in identifying their true wants and needs. He suggests that this clarity of purpose is not merely a common skill but a significant psychological milestone that requires introspection and self-discovery.
In practice
In a motivational speech, one might say, 'As Maslow pointed out, knowing what we want in life is a rare achievement, so take the time to really discover your passions.'
It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.
The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy
Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.
It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually.
I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.
When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate: the taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity.
We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.
Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.