Comment by antman

I don't think like this person at all. Two major differences.

First, people often prioritize what’s immediate over what’s truly important. But people who are near death don’t have the excuse of postponing what matters, because for them, the important has also become immediate. That’s why I listen to their words, which tend to be consistent across cultures and surveys.

Second, the idea that someone must be high on Maslow’s hierarchy to reflect deeply or be truly happy goes against my experience. In remote villages where people weren’t stripped of their resources or caught up in consumerism, I met individuals who lived with very basic safety yet were happier by Aristotelian standards. Many successful businesspeople and political leaders I’ve met didn’t have a consistent sense of happiness. Often relying on medication, especially when their goals of artificial happiness like amusement or luxury stopped producing dopamine. When that stopped working, they tried to escalate, but eventually that too became unsustainable.