The Hierarchy of needs, illustrated below, may look familiar to you. It has been around for quite some time. However over the years, I have tinkered with it for my own needs and philosophy. I have interpreted aspects of it to suit my world-view and to answer larger questions in my life. We have 6 basic needs. It is my belief that we must personally be involved with our attainment of the first levels of needs in order for us to be able to move towards the higher levels. The lower levels are mostly physical survival needs, the higher levels are mostly deeper needs such as spiritual or mental and emotional.
Our greatest need, as human beings, is Self-Actualization. If we were to boil down the problems of the world and for our individual lives, more than likely we would see we are floundering in the lower levels and many of us are completely unaware of the existence of the higher levels, to say nothing of the highest– Self Actualization.
A portion of our population is being artificially preserved on the lowest levels, by government programs and well-meaning people. Another portion is actually pretty solid at those levels, but are fed visions of inequality which they can dwell on and which keeps them from moving forward. These people have a feeling of suffering.
Even if your needs are being met, if you are convinced they are not, you hold yourself back from progressing to further levels. This is a goal of business who profits from people who are living a level 1 and 2 existence. It is also a goal of government, who grows larger and more powerful with more people living at these same levels.
It is NOT beneficial to the individual person who lives in a state of perpetual suffering through their perception of themselves introduced and fed by the advertising , news media, and governmental authorities.
Far too many of us are floating from one job to another and one relationship to another. 
If we could stand back and look at ourselves we would see our dull eyes and feel our heavy feet.
Understanding our larger world and our place in it, allows us to feel important without arrogance. We can recognize our true level, not the level that we have been guided to see. We can take responsibility for our own lives and our happiness and our own suffering.
We can set our personal GPS to reach our personal self-actualization.