Abraham H. Maslow ~  Self-Actualization Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Abraham H. Maslow's Self-Actualization Characteristics:

  • Accept their own natures.

  • Are spontaneous and natural.

  • Are deeply democratic in nature.

  • Like privacy and tend to be detached.

  • Focus on problems outside themselves.

  • Exhibit strong ethical and moral sense.

  • Have close but limited number of friendships.

  • Are independent of their cultural and social environment.

  • Prefer a philosophical rather than a hostile type of humor.

  • Have efficient perceptions of reality and are comfortable with those perceptions.

    Dr. Maslow identified the following historical figures as potential models of self-actualization:

    Benedict De Spinoza
    George Washington
    Albert Einstein
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Aldous Huxley
    Mother Teresa
    Benjamin Franklin
    William James
    Thomas Jefferson
    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Albert Schweitzer
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    Joseph Haydn
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    Robert Browning
    Walt Whitman
    Pierre Renoir
    Abraham Lincoln
    Pablo Casals
    Jane Addams others...