If life is not about winning, what is it about then?

Published in

Appminia

3 min readApr 16, 2023

What’s the most famous pyramid in history?

The Hierarchy of needs from the 1960s by Maslow told a story of achievement by mastering level by level until you win the game of life.

But what if we thought of the pyramid as a sailboat instead?

Life isn’t just climbing up the summit.

According to Scott Barry Kaufman, you don’t ‘climb’ a sailboat like you’d climb a mountain or a pyramid. Instead, you open your sail.

Kaufman is a cognitive scientist interested in the development of intelligence, creativity, and personality. His book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization picks up where Maslow left off in his research and discoveries about the human condition.

Transcend talks about how life is more like a vast ocean of new opportunities of discovery but is also littered with potential dangers and uncertainty. This is because we don’t just go in a linear fashion to progress from one level to another like a video game, never going back to a “lower” level.

But rather, it’s about continually opening ourselves to the world, allowing our sailboats to go further across the seas. This gives us more chances to benefit from the people and opportunities around us, enriching our lives with diverse experiences and connections.

We all need security.

So secure your sailboat.

As we sail through the waters of life, it’s rarely clear sailing. It can be turbulent. The boat can take on water. The wind can change directions.

Our sailboat provides us with our security through safety, connection, and self-esteem. This is the foundational aspect of our hierarchy of needs:

The boat protects us from the danger of the sea
When our fundamental needs are satisfied, we’re more adaptive to life’s changes
Our psychological needs are influenced by our physiological needs

Growth is a direction not a destination.

The sailboat isn’t a pinnacle but a whole vehicle, enabling us to explore the world and people around us. These connections, these experiences, and lessons are what lead to growth.

For real movement, we need growth through love, exploration, and having a sense of purpose.

Life is a reflection of our humanity and our pursuit of being human
We all desire exploration, seeking out the novel, the challenging and the unknown
Growth is about integration (with oneself and others) while contributing to something we feel is meaningful

As we adapt to the changing environment, we can gain or lose when the wind changes direction. Growth comes from leveraging these experiences and lessons. It’s at the heart of self-actualization.