— NEELIX. CARETAKER. 48315.6

This is no slogan for bootlickers, no song to subservience, no advice to submerge our own will beneath the changing tide of someone else’s.

For one thing we can serve other people without losing self-respect, or neglecting our own needs.

More important, we must keep in mind that “need” is not the same as “want.” Genuine need is not some passing fancy. It is long-term, primal, rooted in Who We Are. What others want from us is only rarely what they need. And vice versa. Discerning the difference is a skill. Applying that difference is the mark of great wisdom.

The Universe offers us whatever we need. (And sometimes even what we want!) But it also calls upon us to supply the needs of others—both out of gratitude, and to keep our own pump primed. The truth is, offering to fill another’s need fulfills our need. And their need, on occasion, is specifically to fill ours. In fact, what others offer us—freely, willingly, seemingly out of the blue—is often The Universe pointing to a need we didn’t know we had.

To live in this interdependent circle of need and fulfillment is to experience a “community” that’s both practical and spiritual. In it we discover the one need that must precede all the rest: Each other.

I enjoy supplying what others genuinely need. I affirm the giving and receiving which makes my life purposeful and enriching.

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The above meditation is taken from Going Boldly on Your Inner Voyage © 1999-2004, IF Books.

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