Chapter 5
Unpacking Sam's Story
I’m serialising my book “The Observing I: A guide to living a more authentic life” on Substack, with a new chapter being released every Wednesday. I’m a big believer that philosophy should be available to the masses, not locked behind paywalls or hidden away in dusty archives. So I’m making my book available here.
This is Chapter 5
In the last chapter, we followed Sam’s journey of ups and downs and up-agains. Now we’re going to dive into Sam’s journey and explore what factors impacted his decision making, and how his perspective was shaped by his experiences.
But first, let me ask, did any of that story resonate with you?
As a child, we see that Sam loves to draw. This is an unsolicited authentic expression of himself. There are no pressures forcing him to draw. He’s doing it because it satisfies a need that comes solely from him.
As a child, where does he sit in that hierarchy of needs that we talked about earlier?
He’s got food, shelter, access to water, and able to rest, so he’s not concerned over his physiological needs. His safety and security aren’t a concern - he has no worry about the threat of harm, and he’s cared for by his parents.
His sense of belonging. We can check that one. He is cherished by his parents, feels loved, and is met with unconditional positive regard. The fourth rung, Esteem - we can’t directly infer that from the story, but he is praised for his accomplishments when he shows his parents his drawings, which we can mark against his requirements for prestige and recognition.
So, is he self-actualising? Can a child self-actualise? There’s no reason why not, but we must appreciate that the social and esteem needs of a child are less complex and nuanced than they are in an adult. Children aren’t burdened with the weight of expectation and experience that comes with age.
He’s expressing himself freely. He’s creative, spontaneous, and has little to no regard for meeting the expectations of others (thanks to the unconditional positive regard given to him by his parents).
Do you think that a child who experiences conditional love from their parents, or who fears one of their parents, for example, could self-actualise?
I would say that it’s unlikely. Their sense of belonging and their needs for esteem are going to be shaken in this scenario. If a parent constantly chastises their child over minor transgressions, or pushes their child to meet their own expectations, then the child isn’t going to be in a healthy place to be able to freely and authentically express themselves.
They’re going to be motivated by trying to meet the needs of the parent or, sadly in some cases, working to keep themselves safe from harm.
As he gets older, what’s happening to that state of self-actualisation when Sam enters education? I think we all know that our current education system is designed around success and failure. If you do well in your studies and get good grades, then you’re a success. If you don’t, then you’ve failed.
How do you think long term exposure to this environment during Sam’s formative years impacted his understanding of what constitutes success?
Sam’s focus has moved away from self-actualisation and down into the level of Esteem. He’s trying to meet the external criteria of success placed upon him by his teachers, rather than looking inwards to his own compass, and this is completely understandable.
It’s at this point in his life that he’s getting his first taste of our meritocratic society. Indulge me for a moment whilst I explore this. You may not have come across the idea before and it’s going to be relevant later. Plus it gives me an opportunity for a good rant.
A meritocratic society can be seen as one where individuals are rewarded and advance based solely on their demonstrated abilities, talent, and effort.
In a meritocratic society, we’re told that wherever we are, whoever we are, and whomever our parents were, we will get to where we deserve to be if we have the skill and the drive to do so.
The issue is, if you really believe that people who are at the top of their game are the ones that deserve to be there, then you must also believe that the people who are on the lowest rungs of society deserve to be down there too.
Sit with that for a moment, because that feels like a pretty dangerous mode of thinking to me.
In a meritocratic system, failure and success become deserved and earned. This is a very new idea for most of human history. We used to believe that where people ended up was at least 50% down to divine intervention, the gods, luck, fate. Whatever you want to call it.
In ancient Rome, if things went well for you, the first thing that you’d do is sacrifice a chicken to the goddess Fortuna in thanks for directing your soul on a positive path.
In England in the Middle Ages, someone at the bottom rungs of society was called an Unfortunate. Fast forward to today. What would the same someone be referred to now? A loser.
This is what happens when meritocracy dominates our sense of ideology. If life is a fair race and you’re at the back, you’re not unfortunate. You’re last. You’ve lost. And it has a huge impact on our sense of self-worth.
It’s important for us to at least have this idea in mind, because it can have sweeping implications on how we perceive ourselves and our sense of success as we go through life.
Of course, it isn’t just school and our meritocratic culture that does this. We have all sorts of expectations placed upon us as we grow older, in varying degrees, from our parents, our friends, our loved ones, our bosses, our society - whomever we view as having some sort of influence or authority. Whether we’re conscious of that or not.
The next stage of Sam’s journey is University. We can see that he starts to move back towards a self-actualising tendency. He’s doing what he thinks is “right” from his expectations of success, but he’s also engaging in activities that allow him to satisfy his needs for self-expression. He’s with a group of like-minded people, he’s free to be himself, and he’s making the most of that.
Then he hits work, and it’s like a continuation of his experiences in the education system. Regular reviews, objectives, being rewarded for meeting predefined criteria and punished for not.
Not only that, he’s got the responsibility of having a family. He’s spending his days trying to meet the expectations of his boss, and his free time trying to meet the needs of his family. It’s a tough balancing act, as I’m sure many of you out there can attest to.
He’s feeling fulfilled though, because he’s meeting those expectations. Ticking the boxes for professional success, being rewarded with extra money and extra responsibility. He’s got a comfortable house, a loving family, and lives in financial security.
But he’s not self-actualising. He’s firmly stuck in the realm of esteem. Working late to try and meet the demands of his employer so that he can “get on” and “do well”. He’s got the social expectations of fitting in with his peers, and the constant sense of parental self-doubt - “Am I a good enough father? Could I be doing more? What if I’m doing this all wrong?”
He’s become stuck in a loop of esteem-driven motivation, questioning himself and associating his sense of worth with his perceived understanding of success.
When he fails, he becomes a failure. When he wins, he becomes a success.
Then Sam is made redundant. It cripples his esteem. All of his external senses were telling him that, professionally, he was on the right track. Working hard, getting things done, putting in the hours. Above and beyond. His appraisals were good, and he was working his way up the company strata.
He’s left in a state of shock that shuts him down. “What did I do wrong? Why have I failed? What more did they want? I must not be good enough.”
To Sam, it became deeply personal, and the value that he placed upon himself plummeted. To be made redundant meant that he wasn’t good enough for the job. He knew he had given all that he had, and that hadn’t met their expectations. It’s the danger of the insidious world of conditional positive regard.
The act of engaging with something he loved when he returned to the canvas gave him the space for self-reflection. He recognised that he was unconditionally loved and supported by his partner, and began to internally question what truly has value in his life.
Sam recognised that taking some time for himself to express his creativity and engage in his passions was more important than what he had been trained to think by his educators and employers. That the benchmark for success was not his material wealth, his job title, or meeting the expectations of others. In witnessing the flower bloom on that fateful morning, he realised that human experience happens in the moment.
What we can get from Sam’s story is that, although we can function and be relatively happy working from an external locus of expectation, we are not being our authentic selves. We’re trying to fit in to what we think is right, rather than reflecting upon and recognising what is right for ourselves.
We can also see that, once we’ve begun to self-actualise, we don’t necessarily stay there. Things will happen in life that will throw us off our path and force us to focus our attention on any of the bottom four rungs of our own hierarchy of needs.
What tending towards self-actualisation does allow us, however, is an improved ability to manage any obstacles that are placed in our way. We can do this because when we are self-actualising, we are on a journey of self-awareness and cultivating empathy.
The more we know about ourselves, and the more we can relate to others, the better we can deal with whatever dramas may arise on our journey through life.
The book is available to buy from Amazon as a paperback or an e-book, if you want to add it to your book shelf.