How does an individual’s definition of “needs” differ from one another?

  Need is something that is important and essential for us. We lack of something so we want a need to fulfill it. Everyone has their own opinion and point of view about the definition of needs. It refers to things that we must have and it must with us whenever we go. Different need is essential for people when they are in different situation. For example, some people lack love from their family therefore they need love from family. Need will change after we get the thing that we needed. According to Maslow hierarchy of needs, we can category needs into physiological needs, safety needs and esteem needs.

  Firstly, physiological needs are the needs that we required in our life for our body. It is the most important things for us. Air, food and water are the example of physiological needs. Physiological needs are located at the bottom of the pyramid in the Maslow hierarchy of needs. It needed to function our body system and it is the basis things that we needed as well as we are surviving.  In South America, many people do not have enough food to eat. So, they need food to survive. Everybody also needs sleep. They need enough sleep to conserve energy. According to a University of California, San Diego’s study, sleeping more than 7 to 8 hours per day has been consistently associated with increased mortality.

  Furthermore, safety needs such as health is closely tied to the consequence of satisfying the physiological needs. It can refer to both psychological and physical needs. Safety needs located in the second of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the pyramid. Safety needs include safety of family, safety of health, and safety of morality. We need to have a comfortable shelter likes a house to sleep and avoid from the sun and rain. People who have a poor health need more money to treat their illness to lead to a healthier body. Therefore health is important to us and we need to take good care of our body to avoid from disease.

  In addition, esteem needs is on the second top of the pyramid and it refers to more individualistic needs for accomplishment. This is only essential for us after we had satisfied all three needs. Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, and respect by others are example of esteem needs. We desire to have a success achievement thus we can have a nice memory and will not feel regretful. For example, students need confident in their test and they need confident when they participate in the competition. This need will come after they have fulfilled the physiological, safety and love needs and it is not an essential for everyone.

  In the nutshell, Maslow has categorized need into five category such as physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Physiological needs will come first whereas self-actualization will come after. Everyone have different needs and they will decide which need they are going to have. So, everyone have their own opinion about needs. We need to satisfy the bottom needs that located in the pyramid before going to the higher level of the pyramid.