"You have 6 basic needs that make us tick: certainty/comfort, uncertainty/variety, significance, love and connection, growth, contribution."
-Tony Robbins (TED talk)
The basic needs I want to narrow in on in this part of the chapter are: certainty/comfort, significance, love and connection because I think that all of those things have a part in why people stick to old ideals.
#1 certainty/comfort- if you have an ideal that has been in your mind and keeps on leading you to repeat the past, that's because it's uncomfortable to be uncertain; changing your ideals means that you have to accept the fact that you're wrong and find a way to stop your habitual mistakes.
#2 significance- ideals are formed and opinions are stated on a daily basis, now, that also means that this generation's new ideals could be completely different from the pasts ideals, that's where significance takes play. Typically, people achieve significance through the people around their age. The people you feel significance with are the people that influence your opinions; this leads to old ideals getting passed from generation to generation but also allows for new generations to talk on new ideals, but we learn from people of older generations, so old ideals get passed down.
#3 Love and Connection- similar to significance, love and connection is all about generations ideals intertwining, and repeating past mistakes; because, new generations learn from past generations, they grow to love and feel connected to them, old ideals are the groundwork of this "great" country; while yes this country was formed on ideals- we have grown so much and deserve a re-evaluation.
Our basic needs that make us tick determine the way we make our decisions, you stay in your comfort zone, leaving it makes you feel lost, you stick to the people that make you feel significant and loved, that you feel connected to.
Learning to accept new ideals can often times change the way the people you're closest to sees you. Accepting change is always hard, because people like consistency and routine, they like to know what's going to happen next, and they like to feel accepted by those around them. Change sometimes can make everything around you seem awful for a while... until the new ideals set in, people start seeing that a change is happening; then you see how brighter the future can be if we can learn from old ideals that created past mistakes instead of repeating them.
So, instead of having to get to the point of an all out war over an old ideal...... I'm going to explain how we can change our mindsets towards something that is out of anyone's control... "change".
"Whenever your opinions or beliefs are so intertwined with your self-image that you couldn't pull them away without damaging your core concepts of self, you avoid situations that may cause harm to those beliefs." -David McRaney
Change is hard but change is necessary.
We talked about 3 of the 6 basic needs that make us tick, the 3 that limit us, keeps us stagnant; now here's how we can inspire change by using the other 3 basic needs.
#1 Uncertainty/variety- although uncertainty conflicts with our comfort, we need it to feel content, if you're always comfortable, always certain of what's going to happen in chronological order, then we get bored with our lives, we start feeling too comfortable with where we're at in life, so we start feeling uncomfortable. We start questioning ourselves and our beliefs, this is where the uncertainty sets it. In order to change and to grow you have to re-evaluate the beliefs you were taught... you have to figure out if those beliefs are right or if they're just old ideals. Some traditions formed by ideals should be kept, like family gatherings for holidays, or special events... but traditions that limit you, discourage friendships/relationships, degrade a race or a gender, or discourage you from learning from your own mistakes aren't traditions, they're other peoples insecurities, ignorance, and close mindedness being forcefully pushed down from generation to generation with fear of judgement as it's fuel power.
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