The lives that most people live now are much more materially better than the lives of people even just one hundred years ago. More people have their material needs more easily satisfied and secured than their ancestors did, and we even have access to luxuries, technologies, and benefits that our ancestors could never even have dreamed of. Nevertheless, that begs the question – are our emotional needs more satisfied than ever before as well? It seems that plenty of people have come to recognize that material security, while undoubtedly a great achievement and a blessing for humankind, is not all that is necessary to live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life. People all over the world still feel unsatisfied and are looking for ways to find meaning and purpose in their lives even when they have all of their material needs met. This is completely normal and nothing to be surprised about, especially considering that we humans, above all, are social beings. We need much more than material security to be satisfied – we need love, connection, joy, and serendipity. Our emotional needs are often still not being met and that can lead to a sense of frustration.
A lot of times when we are feeling down, we try to convince ourselves, or perhaps others may try to convince us, that we should not be feeling that way because all of our needs are met. “You have a roof over your head and food on the table”, they will say, as if somehow that is supposed to be a cure-all. Those words, while often well-intentioned, are just a band-aid being used to cover up the very real inkling and suspicion that we have that our emotional needs are not being met. While material security is of utmost importance in a world that is often getting harsher and often requiring us to obtain more and more things, our emotional needs are rarely treated as seriously. People often even confuse material desires with emotional stability. We think, “if I just had this one thing, I would be happier”. I think most of us know that that is not necessarily true. We need to tend to our emotional needs as seriously as we would if we were lacking material security. When we are lacking any form of material security, we work as hard as we can to secure it and we even seek help from others if it is necessary. Searching for emotional security should function in a similar manner.
In order to do so, we need to take time to reflect and really search our hearts and ask ourselves what we think we are lacking emotionally. Maybe in order to feel better, we need to mend a relationship that is on the rocks, or try to cut out more time for ourselves, or make more time for rest, or maybe we need to let go of something from our past that is not letting us heal and move forward. There are endless reasons why we may be feeling a lack of emotional stability and it would obviously be impossible to list them all here, which is why it is up to all of us individually to ask ourselves these tough questions, which will have a high payoff if we really get to the root of the problem. We need to sew the seeds of the future we want and our idea of a fulfilling life that we want to see come to fruition. That fulfilling life will require our hearts to be cared for and satisfied.
