It has been over 80 years since Abraham Maslow proposed his hierarchy of needs, which establishes that people’s circumstances must satisfy basic survival needs before they can even think about progressing to levels of self-awareness and growth.
As prosperity and certainty raise us further from survival mode, when we no longer have to worry about basic necessities like housing and utilities – let alone pandemics – we start to wonder what would make us happier and more content, what would make our lives meaningful.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana expressed this during an interview with Times of Malta when he said: “People are often after something better, and perhaps something that improves their quality of life. They’re not just after money. Given that they are now more affluent, people are after a better quality of life.”
He was responding to a question by the Times of Malta journalist as to whether people were frustrated with strains on the infrastructure and the rising population.
Right on cue, polling company Gallup published its Global Emotions 2024 report – and guess what? Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of the Maltese reported feelings of worry, while more than half (55 per cent) reported feeling stressed. There were some positive findings but the negative ones are very much in line with observers’ analysis of the European Parliament election outcome.
There are two aspects to this: what is causing the worry and stress (whether it is real or perceived); and whether the moaning is a symptom of a population that has become too apathetic or sceptical to do something about what is upsetting it.
The level of worry is – in itself – very worrying. Consider this: higher levels of worry than in Malta were only reported in Afghanistan, Israel and Guinea. Hardly the most prestigious list for Malta to be on…
And it is hardly a surprise. Survey after survey have shown that people’s standard of living may be rising in terms of material goods but that external factors, from traffic, to noise, to construction are becoming worse.
The problem is that repeated promises to do something about it scuttle away faster than cockroaches when you turn on the kitchen lights, hence the scepticism… and apathy.
Recognition of the problems around us build up slowly. We tut about the multiple tower cranes that we see through the kitchen window. We sigh when we have to dodge tables and chairs and step off a pavement. We raise our eyebrows when we read articles about incompetence, nepotism, greed and corruption.
But, at one point, all those niggly little things become a grave dissatisfaction and that is when the sighs turn to moans. And the more promises are made, and then broken, the more impunity shakes us, the more the moans translate into protest votes.
And the stress levels rise because we realise how little control we have over that which irritates, inconveniences and, ultimately, disrupts our day-to-day existence.
Anthropologist and University of Malta associate professor David Zammit said in a Times of Malta article that there was a sense of “impending doom” and that the space we live in is becoming “more hostile”.
In the same article, economist Marie Briguglio pointed out that well-being is not just about the nation doing well materially on average but about “how people feel day to day”.
It is not enough for the government to make more promises, hoping that money in voters’ pockets will appease them. It needs to realise that this is not only about a material standard of living but about a better quality of life.