Review: What Makes Us Tick by Hugh Mackay

Continuing with the theme of self discovery and personal reflection and exploration, it was time to return to the great Australian psychologist and social researcher Hugh Mackay for some more words of wisdom. Listening to What Makes Us Tick: Making Sense of Who We Are and the Desires that Drive Us by Hugh Mackay was an enlightening experience this month.

In this book, Mackay describes the ten desires that drive us, and is careful to point out that a person may be driven by one or more of these desires at any one time. He also goes on to say this is by no means a complete list.

Here are the 10 desires:

The Desire to Be Taken Seriously
The Desire for My Place
The Desire for Something to Believe In
The Desire to Connect
The Desire to Be Useful
The Desire to Belong
The Desire for More
The Desire for Control
The Desire for Something to Happen
The Desire for Love

When reflecting on each of these topics and listening to the author explaining them, I found unprompted examples surfacing from people in my life, those in the media or even people from history who were so driven by one or more of these desires to the point of detriment to those around them.

Mackay covers each of the desires within a separate chapter, and while each can be read on their own and in any order, exploring them all was a worthwhile endeavour. Seeking to understand why others behave the way they do, and what desire/s might motivate them to make the decisions that guide their lives is well worth pursuing.

I can identify two or three desires from this list that motivate many of my own thoughts and actions, those being The Desire to Be Useful, The Desire for Control and The Desire for Love. What about you?

 

For more by this author, check out my review of The Inner Self by Hugh Mackay.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★