You don't need that, really

Sometimes I make myself miserable because I want to help people, and I think I know what they need, but they won’t take it. Today I realized I’m wrong to assume I know what anyone needs. Maybe my husband’s IBS won’t be cured by a gluten-free or lactose-free diet. Maybe no one will truly benefit from the “insights” I think I’m doling out on my various blogs, twitter, etc. Perhaps I have been fooling myself to think that my creative writing could make certain people feel less alone in this world, or that I can change the world for the better with the lovely child I helped create with my husband.

Who am I to think I know what anyone needs?

Things are what they are – or what you make of them.

Now even if someone were to come up to me and say, “I need X,” I can’t trust their assessment. Perhaps they are fooling themselves, and if I give them X, then it really won’t help the way they think it will. So, no, Daughter, you do not need every Rainbow Magic Fairy book, anymore than Husband needs the house to be sparkling clean and neat every day of the week.

Likewise, there are things I think that I need – and I am probably wrong about most of them. I don’t really need that piece of chocolate right now, nor every Paavoharju track ever recorded. I also don’t really need to go on this knitting tour of Iceland. 

See, now we are getting into the realm of wants and desires, and that is a whole ‘nother can of tuna.

Oh I could send myself to the crazy house with this kind of thinking, I know.