Great Throughts Treasury

"When we look back at our lives as a whole, we are most haunted by things left undone--romantic opportunities untried, career changes unexplored, friendships left untended. So, the first suggestion is simply to act."

"If you decide to do something and it turns out badly, research shows that it probably won’t haunt you down the road. You’ll reframe the failure, explain it away, move on, and forget it. Not so with failures to act."

"Fifteen years of research have been combined into a list of the top four biggest regrets of the average American: not getting more education, career regrets, regrets in love, not spending enough time with kids. The list is essentially a summary of the biggest traps, pitfalls, and mistakes into which people like you might blunder. Look over the list and try to identify areas of your life that represent the greatest vulnerability to future regret. And act now to avoid regret later."

"Don’t Over-react. You may react to a regrettable situation by taking many fewer chances. Don’t. This only ensures that you will miss out on new opportunities. Think Downward. Consider the downward alternatives. How could a bad situation have gone even worse? This makes you feel appreciative of what you have. Do It. If you decide to do something and it turns out badly, research shows that it probably won’t haunt you down the road. (You’ll reframe the failure and move on.) But you will regret the things left undone. Regrets are Opportunities Knocking. Our brains produce the most “if only” thoughts about things in our lives that we can still change. So consider regret as a signal flashing: It’s not too late! "

"Life regrets give us a unique way to think about core motives, or what moves us as human beings. What is the one primary motive: parenting or belonging? From this unique vantage point, it seems that belonging is the one motive to rule them all. We are social animals, and from the deepest recesses of our magnificent brains we are driven to seek out and connect with others."

"As we ask what moves us, self-interest fails to satisfy our curiosity because it is so general and covers so many things. Are some people, for example, more focused on hunger and eating or on wealth and career building? These are all self-interest, but they seem different in important ways. Another point of view came from the Hierarchy of Needs proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s, and it offered a roadmap of human motives that were ranked by importance. The most basic need is physiological: food and water and air and sleep. If you have trouble getting any of these, nothing else matters! The next layer centers on safety: finding shelter, protecting your family from harm, ensuring resources (getting a job). Next up are love and belonging needs, which involve romance, family and friendships. Then: esteem needs – to feeling good about yourself and your accomplishments, and having other’s recognize these as well. At the final, top level, comes self-actualization – the ideal state of achieving what you are ideally suited to achieving.The Maslow hierarchy of needs has been taught to generations of college students, and still finds its way today into blogs and boardroom discussions. But it’s important to note that Maslow’s work was based not on research but on idealism. Doug Kenrick, a social psychologist at Arizona state, published with several colleagues an update to Maslow in 2010, and this update was built on years of basic research insights. In their new hierarchy, self-actualization was gone, not because it isn’t important, but rather because people can self-actualize in many ways, including other levels of the hierarchy: some people self-actualize by focusing on security whereas others focus on love. What is at the top of this revised hierarchy? Parenting. The argument by Kenrick and his colleagues is that ensuring the survival of the species is paramount. It is a fundamental biological urge that we share with all animals. This parenting need is primitive but distinct from mate acquisition and mate retention, which were argued to subserve the ultimate goal of parental success."

"What are the fundamental motives that drive human behavior? The answer to this question fascinates us. At a very general level, it tells us who we are as a species. For economists, it sheds light on our decisions and collective actions. For marketers, it enables new products to connect to personal beliefs and ideals. But how can we best describe our motives and needs? Is there a roadmap? A quick answer is that the fundamental human motive is self-interest, as any economist will tell you. We do what is best for us in the near as well as far term, from drinking and eating to forestall immediate thirst and starvation, to thinking strategically about our marriages and careers. Of course, there are obvious self-less exceptions (the war hero who leaps on a grenade to save his buddies), but for the most part, over most situations, most of us act with self-interest. As we ask what moves us, self-interest fails to satisfy our curiosity because it is so general and covers so many things. Are some people, for example, more focused on hunger and eating or on wealth and career building? These are all self-interest, but they seem different in important ways. Another point of view came from the Hierarchy of Needs proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s, and it offered a roadmap of human motives that were ranked by importance. The most basic need is physiological: food and water and air and sleep. If you have trouble getting any of these, nothing else matters! The next layer centers on safety: finding shelter, protecting your family from harm, ensuring resources (getting a job). Next up are love and belonging needs, which involve romance, family and friendships. Then: esteem needs – to feeling good about yourself and your accomplishments, and having other’s recognize these as well. At the final, top level, comes self-actualization – the ideal state of achieving what you are ideally suited to achieving."