The wants of others used to matter to me.

I thought somehow they were mine to fulfill.

At some point I decided that while my wants didn’t matter too much, other people’s were of paramount importance.

I convinced myself I was being caring, or helpful, or altruistic, or some other adjective that bathed me in a golden light, in giving what they wanted.

I allowed other people’s wants, and the fulfillment of them, to become my concern.

And while I pretended to be okay with it, and even to enjoy it in the name of giving, what I really felt was how people were taking from me. And I from them.

I was being used, and I was using. I was using them to feel loved, valuable, helpful, and they were using me to get what they wanted.

Neither of us was considering what we needed, what was best for either of us, or our relationship.

Does it matter what you want when you don’t know what you need?

I, and they, were confusing our wants for our needs. I thought I needed to be helpful, and they thought they needed help, but we both simply just wanted it.

We both exerted our power, our esteem for our self, on each other, in hopes that we could get our wants fulfilled, avoiding the work of understanding what we actually needed.

We lacked the love to know what we truly needed — and how to get it. So we stayed focused on our feelings of entitlement to get what we wanted from the other.

We see what we want. But we can see so much more when we look into the truth of why we want things.

The needs of me.

It has taken me time and space to accept that it has always been up to me, and no one else, to obtain the things I need.

The wants of others, and myself, are nice to know but they don’t need matter. They aren’t helpful or hurtful — until they are attached to.

There is nothing wrong with having wants — it’s in the feeling of needing to fulfill them, or not, that my freedom, or my restriction, is born.

photo credit: ashley rose