Sometimes I forget that people need me.

Wait.
Strike that.
Let me try again...

At all times, I forget that people need me.

Me?
Of all people?
Who makes little to no difference in the lives of the people who know me (to whatever extent)?

Why would people need me?

An incident happened at my job the other day which involved a regular customer of old age who ended up needing help with his physical health, and a coworker told me to go to that customer and check on them because they needed me.
(Let me note that this customer makes my job a pretty much regular stop in his life routine, and I'm the one he seeks out because he's taken to me and I take the time to listen and care for him to the best of my abilities.)
When my coworker told me that our customer "needed me," it was a concept so foreign, it made the cogs in my brain stop because I was unable to process that bit of information.

I guess there are several factors that play into my mindset regarding this.

For one, I have lived the past long, several years of my life trying to not need people.  Forging myself to be fiercely independent, to learn things on my own, to not depend on anyone or any thing, because at the end of the day, it's still just me.  And I can only fully rely on myself.  Other people will - ultimately - always fail me, intentionally or not, because they are human, and that is how life goes. 

At the same time, I think each person out there was created for a wonderful and unique purpose, and there is beauty in that.  And I find joy in building people up, encouraging them to try things out that will help better them or reach their goal(s) or face their fears.  People hold the ultimate value in my mind, and while I may not personally get along with them (or even like them), I still think they are valuable and priceless and worth fighting for. 

But I do not think that how I treat people and how I invest in them (personal feelings aside) determines that I am needed by them.  I imagine that if I went out of their life the next day, that their lives wouldn't change at all, other than I would become that person that they "used to know." 

 A need is a necessity.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this.  But this has been on my mind the past couple of days ever since that incident at work happened.  And I'm still processing the idea of people "needing" me.  As foreign and strange and fake as that sounds.

Honestly, I still don't believe it.  And I'm not sure I ever will.  Because people don't need me.  I'm not that special or significant or important.  People need Jesus.  They need His grace and His mercy and His Love and His peace and His patience.  They need Him to know how magnificently and incredibly they are Loved.  And how fearfully and wonderfully they are made.  But they don't need me.

This post, like most others, is kind of useless.  Just a space to process thoughts still roaming around in my head; with me trying to capture the essence of them on a computer screen.  Perhaps I will think about this more.  Perhaps I will let it go after this posts.

I guess I'll see.

I am beginning to realise how a relationship - of any kind - cannot grow unless the environment of that relationship is one which plants trust and safety and respect and understanding...and nurtures these traits and allows them to grow.
If a person bares their soul, if they force themselves to talk about something that takes every ounce of their strength to share, if they openly say "I'm hurting" or "I feel..." or anything that makes them vulnerable, and their vulnerability is met with judgement and harsh criticisms and they aren't heard, then the likelihood of that person ever sharing again to the one who responded in such manners, decreases exponentially.

I know for me personally, I tend to shut down and not give anything a second chance if I feel unheard.  If I feel like I'm not being understood.  (I don't need you to be able to relate, but just accept, and understand.)

If I have a relationship (friendship or romantic) with someone, and I don't feel safe enough to talk about anything and everything, there is a problem.  A good relationship, a healthy one, should create an environment of safety and understanding and respect.  You should always feel heard.  You should feel confident in the fact that your "no" will be taken as a no, and your "yes" will be taken as a yes.  No arguments, no fights, no being told you're wrong or your decision doesn't make sense if you can't explain it.  You know you are respected enough to be listened to, and your decisions respected.

There is such a large and noticeable difference in a relationship where you feel comfortable sharing some things, but not everything because you know you won't be heard and understood; and in a relationship where you know you can talk about your deepest secrets and your darkest shames, knowing you won't be judged, knowing you are safe, knowing you are still loved.

But if you are in a relationship of the former, where you don't feel completely safe, the growth and health of that relationship is stagnant.  And you feel trapped. And things need to change.

I don't know where I was going with this.  I'll probably delete it later, since I can't follow my earlier thought process.

Oh well.

You are a product of your environment.

So am I.
Everybody is.

There are so many sayings that talk about associating yourself with people you want to be like, or surrounding yourself with success...every one making the point that you are who you hang out with.  You can make a pretty good judgement call on who a person is and what their character is like based off of who their friends are.  Successful people hang out with successful people. Lazy people hang out with other lazy people. And so on and so forth.

But I don't think it's just who you actively and consciously choose to spend your time with. I have begun to realise that even people you spend a lot of your time with tend to rub off on you if you aren't consciously aware and choosing to become the person you want to be. This means you can be pretty strongly influnced by people like your coworkers or your roommates.

If you work with people who are consistently negative and complain all the time, chances are high that you'll start to develop that same mindset. If you live with people who are home all the time and forever watching tv and never going out and getting things done, you will follow suit. On the other hand, if you live with roommates who are constantly active, going out and doing things in their spare time, and are only ever really home to eat and sleep, chances are, you'll begin to follow that lifestyle as well and your productivity may increase more than what it already is.

I can't say I have ever fully, consciously surrounded myself with people I want to be like. But I know I choose the people that I want to be involved in my life pretty carefully. Partly because I like to have close, intimate friendships. And partly because I want to have people in my life who will encourage me, help me grow, point me towards Christ, and correct me when I'm wrong because they love me too much to leave me the way I am.

But I have also actively chosen to be alone. To often keep to myself, and keep the time I spend with others to a minimum. Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into that decision. For one, I don't want to forget who I am. And I know that if I spend a lot of time with other people, I begin to lose sight of myself. I begin to take on their traits and become someone other than me. I also am self-motivated (on my good days). I know that at the end of the day, it's always going to be just me. Just me, in the sense that I am reaponsible for me and the choices I made that day and the actions I decided to put forth. I can't put the blame on other people for my failures, I can't say it was someone else's fault that I didn't get done what I had planned for the day. It all falls back on me. And if I spend time with people who do not hold themselves accountable, who give in to being lazy or putting off today what they can do tomorrow, than I begin to be like that as well. And since it is hard to find disciplined, structured people who are like me, I try ro limit how much time I spend with those who won't exactly help me maintain that lifestyle.

Don't misunderstand me. I still love people and I want to be someone who influences them to do better. But if I begin to be more like them than they are like me, that's when I need to step back and reevaluate. Am I strong enough to continue to spend time with them? Are they rubbing off on me and am I slacking because I'm influenced by them? Where is my responsibility in this and how can I make it better?

We are products of our environments, yes.
But we cannot let that be an all-encompassing excuse for why we are the way we are.
You alone are responsible for your actions and your choices; which means you alone are who you report to at the end of the day if you've failed to do what you set out to do.
So you need to consciously make the choice who you allow near to you and how much time you spend with them.
And see where you go from there.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but I want to work as hard as I possibly can. I want to be disciplined, I want to willingly sacrifice the now for the long-term satisfaction and goals, I want to thrive and succeed.
I want to see if I can do that on my own and not be influenced by those around me.
But I also want to make sure I surround myself with people who will push me and inspire me and motivate me to do better.


I guess we'll see as time goes on who I turn out to be.

(If you have the time, read this great article that talks about surrounding yourself with people who hold you to a higher standard.)