The Need to be Needed for Wisdom

I had an interesting thought today. First I guess I have to give a bit of background.

I love helping people. I always seem to be the confidant, counselor and advice-giver to all my closest friends and boyfriends. I always make people think about what they are doing, and really analyze what the next step is for them. I still don’t understand how some people grew up only thinking in the short-term, but I’m here to help. I’ve had many exes come back and tell me that I changed their lives in a positive way, and most people really value my insight and advice. Helping people makes me happy. That’s part of the reason I started this blog to begin with.

So my thought today was this: Maybe if I stop trying to help (or fix) people, I’ll stop attracting people who need help.

Pretty obvious, when you think about it. A couple months ago I’d already put the pieces together and acknowledged that I seem to attract people who need my help in some way, big or small. Well, guess why? Because I’m probably actively seeking it out. While this may (or may not) help society at large, this is also probably warping my view of the world and keeping me lonely and miserable. I search for relationships where I can feel needed and important, and this is achieved by using these extraordinary skills of mine. But it’s a catch 22 because then I feel like no one gets me, and I’m all alone in these thoughts that seem so obvious to me.

I have to break my attachment to wanting to feel needed.

Giving that up is a really terrifying concept. Ever since high school, and probably sooner from influences around me, I learned that the way to keep someone around was to keep them dependent upon you. That’s what I thought love was at that age – needing someone. If they needed me desperately enough, then that was a deep love. It became more complex than that, but I think that’s been the undertone for me all along. Now I see how fear-based that is.

Well, hold on a second. My heart is protesting against this cut-and-dry explanation. My entire problem is that I wanted people to think like me, and could never find it. I hated it when I had to explain to people why something they did was wrong. I wanted someone to figure it out on their own without me having to spell it out for them.

Maybe this was self-sabotage. That’s what I wanted, but a deeply seeded feeling of having to be needed to be loved may have screwed that all up. “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” Mine wasn’t at all as extreme as that phrase usually implies, but nevertheless, perhaps my need to be needed was pulling in relationships that my search for love and friendship couldn’t work with. Maybe that’s why I had such long loving relationships, but inevitably I couldn’t deal with them anymore and I left.

People who have themselves together don’t need me, so why would they want to be around me? Ah, writing that out resonates with me.

It all comes down to self-confidence, doesn’t it? I get my confidence from my morals and values. I get my confidence based on the choices I’ve made. I’m definitely no saint, I’ve screwed up a handful of times, but I wake-up really quickly and learn from those mistakes. I make sure they never happen again. Some people make mistakes over and over and over, and I don’t understand that. I can’t process that. Does it make them feel strong because maybe they got away with something? The short-term consequences weren’t that bad? Again with the lack of seeing long-term or beyond your mere sensory intake.

Sorry, I won’t rant.

The point I was trying to make is that I found my area that I can flaunt that makes me feel confident. For some people, that is their body. For some people, their book smarts. For others, their masculinity. For me, it was advice and insight. That’s where I shine, but I’m relying solely on that aspect of myself for my confidence. Some of the times I’ve felt the most miserable were when I had nothing in my life to analyze in that way. I felt like I was losing myself because I had nothing to think deeply about. I very much identify with this ability I have, and it basically defines me, at least to myself. I have to remember that there is more to me than that. I am more than my wisdom. I have value beyond that wisdom. It’s tricky though, because I really don’t want to let that go. That’s my lifeboat. That’s what makes me stand out. That’s what makes me proud of myself. Not gonna lie, that’s a very good trait to be proud of, but the problem is that I’m clinging to it. I have to love ALL of me.

Well, I guess I’ll get to working on that.