A friend told me that when her husband is in a bad mood, she asks him to check and see if he: a) is hungry; b) is tired; or c) has to go to the bathroom. Now that she has small children, these are questions she ponders all the time. It occurs to me that I don't think about them enough. Right now, I'm tired enough to lie in bed and fall asleep within moments--but here I am, awake, resisting sleep. And thinking that maybe I want a snack (though I have recently eaten a pile of risotto the size of my head). I'm so bad at intuiting my actual needs and serving them! Or maybe I just have a limited number of means to satisfy my dissatisfaction, and a hierarchy of preference in employing those means: food; media; sex; sleep. These are unfortunately often insufficient tools to satisfying simple needs like that for physical exercise, or more complex needs like identity validation or connection to others. But they are accessible! I guess this is why I eat so much at work.
Anyway, I'm amazed that I've never really gotten good at identifying what's making me dissatisfied and acting to resolve it. It's so easy to go to bed! Stupid will power.
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2 comments:
What about the need to defy your own needs? I think that because I am immersed in the therapy world, I get weary of "self-care" and find myself thinking contrarian, rebellious/pointless things like "I know I am tired, but I would rather staying up watching stupid things on the internet BECAUSE I CAN." And then later perhaps I derive some obnoxious pleasure in my badass physical discomfort. Wait, am I evolving backwards?
I don't think that defying need is in Maslow's hierarchy.
I think I have already sufficiently proved to myself that I'm capable of defying my needs. Haven't you? I think I'd rather that be the exception than the rule.
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