The Secret of Happiness: Satisfying These 4 Needs

If we are not happy, we cannot think of making others happy. Win-win is when we are happy and others are happy. If we are not happy while making others happy, it will be a win-win situation. Being unhappy and making others unhappy is a total loss.

Happiness is the result of meeting our needs.

Selfish need

We begin our pursuit of happiness by satisfying our self-centered needs. We focus on our personal needs-food, clothing, shelter, safety. These needs do not require interaction with other humans.

The next level of self-centered needs requires interaction with selected groups of people. These are the needs for the love, affection, and membership of the group. The need to belong to a group also helps meet security requirements. When these needs are met, we will be happy.

All of the above are self-directed, and we are constantly transitioning from one kind to another because these are constantly changing.

This is also a win-win relationship, because the satisfaction of our needs may depend on the unhappiness of other people.

Symbiotic needs

We recognize that in order to meet certain needs, we must also pay in return. The relationship has changed from "acceptance" to "give and receive", and negotiations are conducted on whether the two parties in the relationship give equal. This is a problem of perception. If one party thinks that he is not getting enough support, there is a problem. We buy the satisfaction of our needs by giving the other party valuable things. This seems to be a barter transaction because there is no universal currency and the valuation of the relationship is subjective.

By the way, "relationship" means not only emotional partners, but also other one-to-one relationships (boss-subordinates) and one-to-many relationships (the relationship between members and the group). If the relationship is based on symbiotic needs, then the perception of what you get from the relationship determines the quality of the relationship.

This agreement is still selfish. If a person feels that he has been changed or his needs are better met elsewhere, then the relationship and the resulting happiness are short-lived. We started looking for happiness with another person, another boss, another job and another group.

A person’s needs in a romantic relationship may become so selfish that he/she persists in the relationship with both hands and suffocates the other person. This creates unhappiness and leads to alienation. Again, this can happen in couples, work and family. If one person depends on another, there is no free will and will exploit others.

Selfless need

If I love birds, my first instinct is to keep it in a cage. I am very happy, that bird may not. We can say that this situation can be rationalized because it satisfies the needs of birds for food and shelter. We think these are the only needs.

If I let go of the bird, two things might happen.

The bird flew away and never came back
The bird came back and left me as I wish.
Either way, the birds are happy.

To truly give someone happiness, and thus realize true happiness, we need to release that bird.

Fear of being exploited

When discussing this philosophy with a friend, a friend said,

"I'm sure that even if Mother Teresa would see someone buying wine with the money she gave him, she would feel sad!"

Yes, we are disappointed when people take advantage of us. I have a few thoughts on this.

The alcoholic is the victim, not the villain. In order to face the stigma of society, he was not willing to become a drunkard. He now has psychological and physical needs, and he believes that wine can meet these needs. From our frame of reference, we believe that food is more important, and our funds should be used as we see fit.
This is a conditional giving, not a free giving. Once we gave money to the alcoholic, we gave up control of the act of giving. If we were convinced that food was more important, then we could have provided food instead of money.
Such people have the right to sympathy rather than judgment
How many friends did we have and how many exploited us? If the number of people is small, should we change our attitude and become cynical, damaging our enthusiasm and thus affecting our other relationships?
Does this cynicism mean that we are still in the realization stage of symbiotic needs? Does this mean that we are disappointed that we are not getting enough in return-we need to feel wanted, grateful or insured?
I know that it is difficult to truly achieve altruism in this materialistic world. We will succumb to the need for selfishness and symbiosis. I only hope that we can do this with the knowledge, but this happiness is short-lived.