In the personal sphere, Maslow’s pyramid remains a hugely useful object to turn to whenever we are trying to assess the direction of our lives. Often, as we reflect upon it, we start to notice that we really haven’t arranged and balanced our needs as wisely and elegantly as we might"

Is my "balance" elegant enough? What needs to happen by the end of this week, so my "balance" moves one inch closer to becoming my personal masterpiece?

From the article: "Operating at the heyday of American capitalism, Maslow was interestingly ambivalent about business. He was awed by the material resources of large corporations around him but at the same time he lamented that almost all their economic activity was – unfairly and bizarrely – focused on honouring customers’ needs at the bottom of his pyramid. America’s largest companies were helping people to have a roof of their heads, feeding them, moving them around and ensuring they could talk to each other long-distance. But they seemed utterly uninterested in trying to fulfill the essential spiritual appetites defined on the higher slopes of his pyramid. Towards the end of his long life, Maslow expressed a hope that businesses could in time learn to make more of their profits from addressing not only our basic needs but also – and as importantly – our higher spiritual and psychological ones as well. That would be truly enlightened capitalism."