Needs.

Sweet, lazy, little me. 

As a child there were many opportunities I had to make money. My father was always willing to pay me something to work for him. These wages might have been meager and the work the type with no end, however the opportunities existed. In retrospect, I was lazy. It's easy to look back on my former childhood self with these critical perspectives, discounting all behaviors as a desire to be a sloth. When I really think about it though, if I was lazy then, am I not still the same lazy person now? Can a person really do a 180 degree turn and change completely who they once were? You have to remember, I am saying I was lazy as a child, a child who didn't choose as much as acted on impulse. I did not see consequences, I just saw the here and now, living for the moment.

I would connive and scheme as to how I could avoid work, but yet weren't those things work in themselves? Was I really lazy when I was actively trying to convince my mom and dad without consequence to allow me off the hook from any said chores or projects? When I would get out of stuff, I was miserable in boredom, as though to admit I wasn't doing something and maybe missed the work?

So, what I needed at the time was a mind able to see through the "here and now" and instead do what I realized fulfilled my purpose more appropriately. I was bored a lot as a kid, therefore I ate stimulating junk food, a habit I carried through to this day when boredom triggers a desire for stimulation, food being the utmost high. What I need though is to see these obvious things and put them to use. I had to learn to live with my gifts rather than run away from them.

This is all easier said then done, and what I needed wasn't ever what I wanted. For example, I needed love, for we all do. I took to excessive lifting, gym-culture, and much time spent on very superficial routines (my motive was superficial for there are people with more depth than I who engage in the culture) all to receive attention, and therefore love. I was not happy with myself and thought that by spending time in one area, a superficial one, I would make people love me. I could alter myself, run away from this fat child to finally obtain a worthiness of love. All these wrongfully, planned, desired motives took me further away from any actual love and instead put me in this inauthentic place.

With age, came a way to still be lazy, but appear to show work. 

You see, what I wanted was noble, for we all want and need love. What I did to try to get it was the misguided and even "lazy" part. Lazy because the way I went about trying to get what I needed was within my own comfort zone and what I wanted. What I needed however was to realize how broken, or misguided my perspective was. My goals were all wants and I thought the more the better which meant, more love and more success. What I needed was less. I needed it all to be taken away, crumbled to see that what I needed all along wasn't a desired competition where I was either a winner or loser, but to admit fault. I had to build on my minute bits of humility, and therefore see what I needed and accept what it takes too get there.

Through humility, admitting that my way was not the best and that I was misguided and that I invested so many years into a perspective that wasn't helpful was painful. Pain like being hit by a bus. To admit things about myself seemed so pathetic. I felt like this little worm inside of a hard metal casing. The muscles were my case for they needed to be thick to protect the fragile inside. I had to admit these things, not to reinforce a "loser," but to begin the rebuilding process of what I needed.

Just like underwear on Christmas morning,
sometimes we get what we need, not what we wanted. 

What we need oftentimes is not what we want. I would not ask to be broken or humiliated, however these things remind me to be humble to be grounded accept all things about me which I want to avoid. This is what giving a person what they need means. Being a parent I see that I want to be my daughters friend, however her actions, her behaviors, they make me "parent" and therefore I have to give her what she needs to be a respectable person to herself and others when she gets older. What I want at the time is fun and light what is needed though is discipline.


What we need is not going to be enjoyable. Not unless you are thirsty and need water, for then that water will be worth more than any money you could want. What we need is totally different than want. Need brings about the things that bring about the best in us. Want might reinforce the parts we actually want to improve on to avoid further consequences. It is the willingness to apply this and take steps to do what is needed, more difficult and active than the wants. For the wants are under our choosing where the needs might not be.