Specific Purpose: The purpose is to allow the audience to understand how true happiness, or self-actualization, can be achieved.
Introduction
Attention Materials: Many times I have wondered what is true happiness. Is there such thing as true happiness? Can it even be attained if there is such a thing? Is it more of fulfilling desires, or satisfying psychological needs? Every person attempts to realize happiness in its fullest essence. It seems like today people are too busy trying to get rich. Nowadays it is believed that happiness lies in that new mansion, or a nice Ferrari. People are mistakingly assuming that wealth will bring to them a personal significance in which they will achieve happiness. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs actually limits the relationship between happiness and material possessions. Abraham Harold Maslow is a humanist psychologist who taught at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms." It is believed that happiness, or self-actualization as Abraham Maslow calls it, is more of a mental and psychological thing. If you’re a psychology major you probably heard the term a couple of times, but I’d like to expand a little more about it.
Thesis Statement: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs explains that happiness is achieved through a series of steps.
Preview: We will look through the steps suggested by Abraham Maslow in order to achieve true happiness.
(First, lets talk about the first step of the hierarchy, the most basic of human needs.)
Body
I. Maslow’s Hierarchy consists of five levels.
A. Physiological needs, which are basic human needs such as hunger, thirst, and avoidance of pain.
1. For the most part, physiological needs are obvious – they are the literal requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met,