We Need You!

Did you know there are some brackets of people who tend to live longer than others? These people are often farmers, teachers, writers, or anyone else whose work continually begins anew. Why do they live the longest? Because they constantly feel both useful and needed.

A teacher needs to prepare for a new year of students, a farmer needs to plant new crops and feed hungry animals, a writer finishes one book and begins another one. The cycle continues.

Eleanor Roosevelt in her book, You Learn By Living, says feeling both useful and needed are the necessary requirements for happiness.

“Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive. And it is its own reward, as well, for it is the beginning of happiness, just as self-pity and withdrawal from the battle are the beginning of misery.

It is easy to slip into self-absorption and it is equally fatal. When one becomes absorbed in himself, in his health, in his personal problems, or in the small details of daily living, he is, at the same time, losing interest in other people; worse, he is losing his ties to life. From that it is an easy step to losing interest in the world and in life itself. That is the beginning of death.”

We function best and are happiest when we feel both useful and needed.

So what does this look like?

Well, for example, writing this blog post today makes me feel both useful and needed. I know you will be expecting it and I hope you will find encouragement from it. I, on the other hand, am a much happier person when I write. You see, we all need each other. You need what I have to offer and I need what you have to offer.

So, what is it you have to offer?

Being needed looks like presenting the world the things we are good at. When we share these things we feel needed and useful because we are needed and useful.

Do you see the marvelous way this all works?

Whatever you’ve got inside of you, no one else has! No one else has the exact genetic makeup you have. The world needs each of us and the things we do best.

Fulfillment comes when we choose to boldly offer what we do best, when we step up, step out, and offer ourselves. Here I am, and this is how I can serve and be useful. This is what I bring to the table.

We need you! What will you offer?