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Self-actualization, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled. Self-actualization was coined by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realize one's full potential: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive ... the drive of self-actualization." Carl Rogers similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy – man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism.
Self-Actualization - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
We do something even beyond this unprecedented gratification delay: we use the dopaminergic power of the happiness of pursuit to motivate us to work for rewards that come *after we are dead*—depending on your culture, this can be knowing that your nation is closer to winning a war because you’ve sacrificed yourself in battle, that your kids will inherit money because of your financial sacrifices, or that you will spend eternity in paradise. It is extraordinary neural circuitry that bucks temporal discounting enough to allow (some of) us to care about the temperature of the planet that our great-grandchildren will inherit. Basically, it’s unknown how we humans do this. We may merely be a type of animal, mammal, primate, and ape, but we’re a profoundly unique one.
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Robert M. Sapolsky
The most valuable knowledge is always discovered last: but the most valuable knowledge consists of methods.
The Will to Power
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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