Guest Contributor: Shahnawaz Soomro
At some time in our lives, the majority of us have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, perhaps at a management training session, in a psychology textbook, or on a motivational poster on someone’s office wall. It is a tidy, reassuring pyramid. The most fundamental physiological needs, food, drink, shelter, and sleep, are at the bottom. Safety, financial stability, health, and personal security rank higher. Next is love and belonging: community, family, and friendship. Esteem follows, including respect, acknowledgment, and a feeling of achievement. And finally, perched at the very summit of this thoughtfully formed triangle, sits self-actualization, the attainment of one’s full potential, creativity, and purpose.
The pyramid’s message is simple and reassuring: you can only be your best self after you meet your basic needs, build a stable and safe life, find love and a sense of belonging, and earn respect.
It sounds reasonable. Almost apparent. But here is what bothers me. I see a very different picture when I examine the individuals we consider genuinely successful, well-known, or even holy. Many of them didn’t wait for security or a sense of community. Comfort and social acceptance were not relevant to them. Instead, they pursued meaning first and willingly compromised everything else along the way.
I now think Maslow got things wrong. Self-actualization is not a prize at the top of the pyramid for the most motivated people among us, the entrepreneurs, artists, activists, and nurses. It is the engine that burns through every layer below it.
The Comfort Trap: What Maslow Missed
But here is an even deeper truth that Maslow completely missed. It is not just that successful people sacrifice their lower needs. It is that unmet lower needs often become the very fuel for self-actualization.
Think about it:
The hungriest person works the hardest.
The person with no safety net takes the greatest risks.
The person who does not belong anywhere builds something new to belong to.
The person with no respect from others fights twice as hard to earn it.
Their absence becomes their ladder.
Now look at the opposite. The person with a full stomach, a secure job, a loving family, and the respect of their community, what do they need to strive for? Nothing. They have already arrived. Comfort becomes a cage. Belonging becomes a blanket that smothers ambition. Esteem becomes a reason to stop growing. They withdraw. They break. They never reach self-actualization, because they never need to. Maslow assumed scarcity is an obstacle. I believe scarcity is often the engine.
The Surprising Truth About the Pyramid
Let me start with a startling fact that most people do not know: Maslow himself never actually drew the pyramid. Others invented the famous triangle that has become synonymous with his name after his death. Lately, humanistic psychologists have shown that this visual reduction distorted Maslow’s more complex and adaptable theories of human motivation (Jogdand & Magar, 2025).
Fortunately, more recent research is finally making progress. A 2025 study specifically suggests an inverted Maslow hierarchy, in which self-actualization is “the structural initiator of stability, survival, and relational coherence,” not the outcome of lower needs being met (Bostick, 2025, p. 4).
This inverted pyramid connects directly to nursing theories already honored on Nursology.net. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring similarly places caring, not comfort, at the center of nursing practice. Watson recognized that nurses prioritize caring for others over their own needs. Caring is the primary drive, the engine, the calling. Maslow assumed a ladder. Nursology recognizes a calling.
What Religious Traditions Teach Us
Now think about global religious and spiritual traditions. Buddhist monks voluntarily forgo emotional connections, safety, and material comfort through vows of poverty and celibacy. Christian ascetics have historically eschewed worldly recognition, lived in seclusion, and fasted for extended periods. Sufi mystics in the Islamic tradition intentionally endure suffering to purify their souls and remain vigilant in prayer throughout the night. Hindu sadhus give up their families, belongings, and social standing in pursuit of spiritual freedom.
None of these people waited for their basic needs to be satisfied. They chose to compromise those needs because they were already working toward self-actualization or spiritual realization, as they call it. Their emptiness became their fullness. Their hunger became their prayer. These lives cannot be explained by Maslow’s original pyramid. An inverted pyramid can.
What This Means for Nursing
As a nursing graduate from Aga Khan University, I see this inversion of Maslow every day. Nurses work twelve-hour shifts without breaks. They skip meals. They miss their children’s birthdays. They risk back injuries, needle sticks, and burnout. By Maslow’s logic, they should be incapable of self-actualization. And yet they are the ones holding patients’ hands at 3 AM, catching medication errors before they happen, and going home to study for certifications. Their lower needs are not met. But their calling is. Nurses do not succeed despite their lack. They succeed because of their lack. Their exhaustion gives them purpose. Their sacrifice gives them meaning.
A Call to Rethink Comfort
Our culture consistently sends a reassuring but constrictive message to young people, especially those with aspirations: “Get stable first. Build a secure foundation. Then pursue your passion.” That advice is safe. It makes sense. But it is not the only path. And for some people, it may not even be the best path. In fact, following that safe advice may be the very thing that kills their greatness. Comfort is not always a blessing. Sometimes comfort is a curse. Occasionally, the best thing that can happen to you is that your basic needs remain painfully, beautifully unmet.
Some callings require hunger. Some dreams demand loneliness. Some purposes only reveal themselves after you have said no to safety and yes to meaning.
My Question to You
Have you ever noticed that the most driven people often come from the most difficult circumstances? Have you ever seen comfort destroy someone’s ambition? Have you ever seen struggle create someone’s greatness?
References
Bostick, D. (2025). Inverting Maslow: A recursive framework for coherence-first human development. PhilArchive.
Jogdand, A. M., & Magar, A. A. (2025). Importance of Maslow’s theory in 21st century and its implications in daily life. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.25215/1303.051
About Shahnawaz Soomro
Shahnawaz Soomro is a postgraduate student of the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Pakistan. He is interested in the intersection of psychology, nursing theory, and human potential. This is his first contribution to Nursology.net.
This is a fascinating reframing. What struck me as I was reading is that the critique may not simply be that Maslow placed the needs in the wrong order, but that the pyramid itself reflects a highly individualistic worldview. Nursing theories have long emphasized that persons do not exist as isolated units “climbing upward” toward self-actualization, but are always embedded in relationships, environments, and systems of meaning.
I was also reminded of more recent discussions about Maslow’s interactions with the Blackfoot Nation and the argument that some relational or community-centered concepts may have influenced his thinking, even if they were ultimately reframed within a Western psychological model. Whether or not that influence has been overstated historically, it certainly raises interesting questions about how theories travel across cultures—and how easily relational worldviews can become translated into individualistic ones.
From a nursing perspective, it is difficult to separate survival from relationship. Infants survive because of caregiving; patients heal within networks of support; isolation itself becomes a health risk. In that sense, belonging may not be a “higher” need at all, but something foundational to being human.
Leslie
Very interesting food for thought and interesting to invert the triangle! I worry that by using this model corporations and healthcare systems could excuse staff shortages and how their systems take advantage of nurses for their own profits. Just food for thought. A really interesting essay.