"What Everybody Needs"

"You know what everybody needs? You want to put it in a single word?

Everybody needs to be understood.

And out of that comes every form of love.

If someone truly feels that you understand them, an awful lot of neurotic behavior just disappears — disappears on your part, disappears on their part. So if you’re talking about what motivates this world to continue existing as a community, you’ve got to talk about love… And my argument is it comes out of your biology because on some level we understand all of this."

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/02/sherwin-nuland-what-everybody-needs/

Actually though, stop what you are doing and listen to the full interview. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever listened to, really. I bought his book, like, immediately afterwards because I wanted to keep experiencing his perspective on the world.