The Great Want

About a month ago, I decided to take a break from the world, a sabbatical. I deactivated my Facebook account, deleted my blog, took a long dive off the edge of the earth. I wasn't happy. I needed to refocus. I needed to recenter myself. I was feeling a little worthless, like the world was against me at every turn. I was sad, angry, and selfish. I simply couldn't understand why I wasn't getting what I wanted - what I deserved. I'm a good person! I do good things! Look at all the good things I've done! Where is my reward?! I threw myself an epic pity party and was righteously pissed when no one showed up. So I did what I don't normally do - I sat, pouted, waited, threw fits to get attention. Look at me! Look how terrible my life is! Someone fix it for me!

Well... no one came to fix it.

Turns out, the only person that could fix it was too busy being mad at the world. Why? Why wasn't my life going the way I wanted it to? Why was this happening to me? Why was the world so ignorant to my needs?
 
Then the epiphany came...

The world doesn't need me. It doesn't need my thoughts, my opinions, my words. It can go on without me, none the worse or better. BUT - I need the world. I need to think. I need to feel. I need to learn. It's empowering, knowing you need something that doesn't need you back. In my world of chaos, it's refreshing to not be needed. My only purpose in the world is to GIVE, not receive. It owes me nothing and in return, I don't owe it anything, either. Instead, I CHOOSE to give what I want to. I can choose to give it good or I can choose to give it bad, but that choice reflects only on me. That choice impacts the people I love and those that love me. It doesn't do a damn thing to the world as a whole.

What this led me to realize is that my world is small. Yes, in this globetrotting, international business dominated, news traveling in a flash orb, my world is small. It is small, but important, and I am important to it. I am important to my family, my friends, my community. I can be important for good reasons or bad, and I am no more important than the next person.

But even this small world doesn't need me. It WANTS me. I found this out when I took that unannounced break and red flags sprang up all over.

It doesn't NEED my cynical face, my rants, or my raised eyebrow full of suspicion. It wants my kindness, my ability to see things from another point of view, and my knack for making people think.
Sometimes, we lose our place in the world. Sometimes, we forget what our world is, what it means to us, and who lives in it.

What don't I need or want from my world? Approval. Acceptance. A "good reputation." That's too much pressure to please everyone. It doesn't change who I am or how I think. I am who I am. Take it or leave it. The change is that how you treat me won't determine how I treat you. I'll still show you kindness, help you when you need it, speak only the good things or nothing at all. I'll learn my lessons and move on.

I woke up today and for the first time in a long time, I was happy. I had a list of things in my head that I wanted to do, not what I had to do. I wasn't sad, hopeless, or full of anger. I wanted to do better and be better. I felt like I had my world back, my rose colored glasses firmly in place, the understanding that my world doesn't NEED me but it WANTS me. That I have a place firmly planted in it.

The beautiful part is that it's wanted me all along. I just had to allow myself to be wanted.