What really matters!

   

We all need to feel that we are significant, that we matter. Being significant matters. Hate me or     Love me, Like me or dislike me, but don't hold me with indifference. Indifference kills. Often I have observed beggar seeking alms: they don't mind if you oblige them or refuse them, but it seems to me ignoring them is the worst kind of manner in which we treat them. Children become truant when they seek positive attention, but find that the only way to get that is by doing something naughty. Ask any school teacher if that's true and she will quickly agree to this. That's why the 'badmash' in the class is made the class monitor.

Secondly, we all have a great desire for Certainty. A causal connection to what we do and what consequences will take place. Without this, we feel confused. We do want a predictability of what actions create a certain outcome, and most of our lives we wish to ensure a predictability to our lives. Deep within certainty is the fear of security, of existence itself. 

  

Ironically, then we also need a degree of uncertainty. It's what makes life interesting, less boring. We need variety in doing the same things: variety in the foods we eat, variety in our sex lives, variety in the way we dress. If everything turns out exactly the way it did, and as planned how utterly boring life could be. Hence we love surprises: in events, in gifts, in conversations, in vacations. 

Then even as we feel significant, we have a deep desire to make connections: express and relate with the other. Initially, we make a connection with just ourselves (for survival) then we include others (significant other, later children), then extend this to relatives, kith and kin (family). Over time the definition of community expands to be even more larger in it embrace. Selfishness and altruism is just one single line, with just the definition of community enlarged: both are selfish.

And finally, it is about growth. Happiness is not about being in a happy state. It is about the belief that 'things are getting better' and soon. Employees are most engaged in organisations where they feel they are making progress, things are looking up, conditions are improving. 

     Also read, the SCARF model by David Rock which involves five domains of human social experience: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. You can google and read more on this.