Don't be dumber than a hamster

On meeting your needs before chasing your potential

Hello fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Detroit, Michigan.

I head off to Florida for a sister trip tomorrow. I am stoked!! It’s been five years since I swam in the Atlantic with her. Anywho, this week’s letter is more barren. I’m granting myself grace. Last week I published over four thousand words and took about 15 hours to refine and polish, minus the nostalgic and emotional roller coaster it was of recounting my 15-year-old self. If you missed it, check it out here:

Dear Younger Me

Now, let’s dive into letter 303 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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🖊️Writing

Polo knew what he needed.

A few mornings ago, I dropped my parents off at the airport. It was 6 am, dark, and snowy. Polo is a little black curly wide-backed doodle that looks like a water buffalo. He rode shotgun home with me, whimpering and heartbroken missing mom. Every few minutes, he’d lift his paw and whack my right arm on the steering wheel. He desperately needed my hand resting on his snout to feel less alone. He didn’t second-guess it or push through it. He asked for what he needed, and it worked.

I wish I were that honest.

My sophomore year in college, Professor Rode taught me about motivation theory and I loved it so much that I switched my minor from marketing to management. At the center of it was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s this idea that humans move through layers of need, from the most basic physiological ones at the bottom (food, water, sleep, shelter) up through safety, love and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization at the top: creativity, purpose, peak experience, meaning.

What’s worth knowing is that this famous pyramid diagram was never actually Maslow’s own creation. He laid out the theory in a 1943 paper but never drew a triangle. The pyramid was likely introduced in a 1960 management textbook and has since taken on a life of its own. Someone else built the tidy visual after he was gone, which, if you think about it, is very on-brand for how we treat our needs in general. We’d rather have a clean diagram than sit with the messy reality.

I’ve thought about Maslow’s ideas a lot since that class, and I’ve also been spectacularly bad at applying them. Sometimes I’m so busy chasing social connection with others, thinking I’m just a step closer to self-actualization, that I become completely void of my more basic needs like eating or sleeping.

I ignored hunger for eight hours at a conference because the conversations were too good to interrupt. A mantra in my head (planted by my dad) finally said:

“Don't be dumber than a hamster"

Even my pet hamsters growing up, Muffin and Yogi Bear, knew when they needed to eat. I apparently needed the reminder.

Photo by Juliya Sidorova on Unsplash

This past Saturday, I crashed in the middle of the Dutch Golden Age room at the DIA while yawning, feet aching, caffeine crash from coffee coming on. I thought I could keep up with the energy of my dad. He is a man over twice my age, but I was wrong. He had to steer me toward the café for a pretzel and a charcuterie board before I could actually engage with any art again. My dad told my college roommate freshman year: if she’s cranky, hand her a cheese stick. Problem solved.

The pattern is always the same. A real, simple need goes unmet. I override it. I lag, crash, or get irritable. Someone from the outside, my dad, a friend, a dog, can see it more clearly than I can.

You can’t self-actualize on a sleep-deprived, empty stomach. The base of the pyramid isn’t a suggestion. It’s the whole foundation.

And yet an entire industry is built around the fantasy of escaping this equation. Energy drinks promise to make us superhuman. Someone who never crashes, never yawns, never needs a pretzel at 2 pm. I drank enough Monster in college to know the appeal. The whole mythology around hustle runs on this idea that needing rest or food or comfort is weakness and that the truly driven person transcends biology. But that’s not energy. That’s just debt you pay later.

Real energy isn’t something you manufacture. It’s something you stop blocking by meeting your basic needs.

Chase your potential after you meet your basic needs.

The people who seem most alive aren’t running on stimulants or willpower. They’re unusually honest and unselfconscious about what they need in a given moment. Polo pawing my arm. My dad spotting my hanger before I did. A young eighteen-year-old woman in the movie “Mystic Pizza” who just happens to take care of herself and glows with it, while everyone around her wonders what her secret is.

I know I sound motherly, but I’m trying to relearn from the nature of animals. They don’t philosophize about their needs or feel embarrassed by them. They meet them, and then they’re fully present for everything else.

There’s no secret. Tend the bottom of the pyramid first. Small, real things beat big, fake promises every time. So don’t be dumber than a hamster.

thriving post cheese board :-)

❓Question to think about

What basic needs could I meet to feel more energetic?

~~

🎧Listening

Cruel Summer by Bananarama

Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning
I sit around
Trying to smile but the air is so heavy and dry
Strange voices are sayin’ (what did they say?)
Things I can’t understand
It’s too close for comfort, this heat has got right out of hand

Inspired by my watching of the Karate Kid Trilogy last week :)

🔍Word to define

Drivel (n): nonsense

senseless, foolish, or meaningless talk and writing—essentially, nonsense or driveling rubbish. It is an uncountable noun often used to describe boring or worthless information. The term also historically refers to saliva flowing from the mouth, similar to drooling or slobbering.

Example: stop wasting airtime and talking drivel!

🌟Quote to inspire

“You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” — George Lucas

📸Photos of the Week

🙏Shoutouts

• To my friend , who wrote about how letting go of expectations led to the love of her life. I got the privilege of listening to this story and it’s such a good one! Check it out :)

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I am grateful you chose to fill part of your day here.

If something in this letter resonated, press the ❤️ , leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetJL@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.

Keep on learning 😁

Tot snel 🌺 🌺

Toodles :)

Jen

P.S. #1 - In case you missed, last week I wrote thirty lessons I’d tell my fifteen year old self.

P.S. #2 - I wrote a book. Letters to My Life is my favorite way to share my writing with you (and it keeps your screen-time stats down). Grab your copy here.

P.S. #3 - I am looking for housing. If you or someone you know fits these criteria, I’d love to get in contact. Thank you. 🙏