We should be able to agree that we only have one life to live, and that we should make the very most of our life that we are able to achieve. But, what does that mean? The sad problem today is that 70% of all Americans are unable to live above the social level of Dr. Abraham Maslow’s psychological Hierarch of Needs. They do not know that three levels even exist above where they currently are. That is because our cultural level of living is still quite primitive, and our beliefs create mental blocks precluding anything that we had accepted as our truths during our early formative age before we had the ability to reason for ourselves. Many currently block your ability to see beyond those. We do this for emotional reasons, and feel safe because of those beliefs. The book will not destroy your beliefs, but it will provide sufficient education for you to build bridges that will allow you to reach the three levels above the social level that you do not even know exists today. The book will significantly increase the quality of your own life.
The book speaks clearly to three different audiences. The first is for those who have found the philosophy of Humanism, by providing its history from the origin of the Epicurean philosophy 2,600 years ago, to a modern view today. Humanism is not a religion. You will still have yours. Those limiting beliefs you currently have will just no longer keep you from making the very most of your own life. But you will still have them.
Even more beneficial, the book will provide a value system for the 27% of all Americans recently asked in the 2020 U.S census, including 40% of those who are Millennials and younger, when asked their religion will say “none”. For most of those people, their current value system is only acquired by what most of their friends think. They seldom think for themselves. Fully Human / Fully Alive will provide them a valid value system in depth that will enhance their lives instead of only maintaining their current day-to-day life. It will provide motivation to improve the quality of their lives beyond anything they can see today.
The third and largest population the book will add value is the 70% of all Americans that today cannot rise above the social level, which is the third level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, not even realizing that three higher levels even exist. That is so sad because they miss the opportunity to have the highest level of living that they are capable of achieving.
That is because no one before has provided them the path that would allow them to make the most of their own lives and show them the means to get there. This book will open their eyes by providing bridges over or detours around their current beliefs that currently block their ability to grow. It will not destroy those beliefs. It will merely provide new paths so that those beliefs acquired for emotional reason, nor longer block the reader.
Those people are a ripe field for reaching potential humanist to market our philosophy. Maslow created Humanist Psychology and we need to use it in our endeavor to make our world a better place because we have each been here. That is the only form of immortality that we are certain really does exist. The search for becoming Fully Alive is pure Humanism.
Lyle Simpson, Author, Fully Human / Fully Alive
Former President of the American Humanist Association 1980-1984Chair, Humanist Foundation, 1984-2024