Today’s prompt was pyramid and I had this idea in my head of an Egyptian pyramid and I was going to write about how I decided (at age 7) to become an archaeologist because of the Nancy Drew book ‘Secrets of the Forgotten City.’* The book is about an archaeological dig (although not in Egypt) and for me it tied archaeology in with detective work and drew me in. I remember telling my Mom that she shouldn’t count on me having her grandkids because it would be too dangerous for me to having them crawling around in tunnels with me on my digs.*

Meanwhile, it turns out that I could not reproduce the image I had in my head and instead I ended up with this odd shape that I couldn’t do anything with. Sooooo, I started thinking about other types of pyramids and came up with my hierarchy of needs.

Ever since I was introduced to it in university, I have been interested in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And I find it weird when people expect people who are unable to get enough food to find the mental space to be philosophical. I am grossly oversimplifying it, of course, but it is good to remember that humans have very real physiological needs that MUST be dealt with before we start branching out into other areas. That’s an oversimplification, obviously, but still.

Anyway, a few years ago, my friend Megan Francis posted a mother’s hierarchy of needs  which borrows from Maslow’s but adds some things very specific to parenting. That was a really huge connection for me. OF COURSE, we can’t function well if we haven’t slept well, if we aren’t eating properly, but until she laid it out, I had been expecting myself to just function the way I wanted to, no matter what the circumstances. Once I saw her pyramid, I stopped being so hard on myself about quite a few things.

So, today, when I messed up my pyramid vision, my mind wandered to the hierarchy pyramid and I started thinking about the things I need for my own personal satisfaction. There are lots more things I want and need in my life, of course, but these are the things that popped up for ensuring my own satisfaction with how my life feels from the inside.

I’m curious now, though, what would be in your hierarchy of needs?

*As an aside, one of the most fabulous gifts I have ever gotten was a copy of that very book. My dear friend Krista remembered that I had lost my copy years before and knowing that it was important to me, she picked it up on her travels somewhere.

**Funny how my 7 year old self assumed that 1) I would obviously work after having kids 2) the kids would automatically be with me all the time 3) all archaeologists spent a lot of time crawling around in dangerous spaces.