To Need and To Be Needed

Just the other day, I was talking with a group of students who asked me a very interesting question. I was telling them about the work I was doing in Rwanda, Africa around education and the public school system. I explained that I had traveled to Rwanda 10 times in the past four years and I go back at least 2 times every year. As I spoke of my journeys to Rwanda, I would often refer to the people and the culture as something I never experienced here in the US. This led to their question.

“What is different about the people and the culture in Rwanda?”

Now it is easy to give a quick answer to that question and say something like the experience of poverty and the daily challenges of everyday life. Or to look back on the history of the country and talk about the character that is developed by people who survived a horrific genocide like the one in 1994. But for some reason, a quick answer did not seem appropriate. In fact, I remained quiet for quite some time and began to dwell on the question.

I came to what seemed to be a very strange conclusion. What made the people of Rwanda different was their willingness to need and their joy in being needed. There is humility and strength that develops from that willingness to admit need and meet the needs of others.

What?!? Neediness is a virtue? Neediness is something exceptional? No, not the neediness, but the willingness and acceptance of having needs that require others to provide for you as well as the willingness to meet other peoples needs without feeling superior or demanding something in return. Let me explain.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City. I was taught at a very young age that you could never be needy. In fact, in our society, the quality of a man is his ability to provide for himself and the independence never to need anyone. I always equated need with weakness and neediness with failure. As I look around our culture, we have created the same general belief that to be needy is a true sign of weakness; therefore nobody is willing to be needy.

Furthermore, if someone needed me to do something, the first question I was taught to ask was what is in it for me. How much will I get paid? What will you do in return? I am not suggesting that our time and our work should not be rewarded with compensation. I am a firm believer in compassionate capitalism. But I have seen in our culture that the compassion has been removed from capitalism. Capitalism has become a “kill or be killed” sport that very few people win. Not only has our capitalistic economy lost its compassion, but nearly every aspect of our culture is asking the question what is in it for me.

What ever happened to the question, “What can I do for you?”

If you are sad or disappointed, you are supposed to hide those feelings, bury them. If you are feeling like you just can’t do it, you are supposed to suck it up, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make things happen. If you are required to get something done, you better do it yourself because that is the sign of a real success. In my world growing up, asking for help, acknowledging a need was considered a failure.

But as I spend more time in Rwanda and other developing countries, I have begun to see the failures of our culture, the fallacy that we are never to need anything or anybody. In Rwanda, due to so many different circumstances, no one is able to provide everything for him or herself. They are required to rely on their neighbors, their friends and their community to help meet the needs of life. Whether it is the need to raise your children, farm your land, collect water or go to market, each need comes with a need for others to help. Pride is never lost because of need. In fact, helping and being helped by others in need develops a humble and appropriate sense of worth. It is a culture that depends upon the entire society to make it complete. Often, Rwandans must look to the global community to meet their needs, yet they are eager to be needed by the global community as well.

This willingness to acknowledge need and to serve others in need, forces each and every one of us to respect each other, care for each other, and rely on the people who are in our lives. In the end, it creates a culture of love and mutual respect. It creates a culture of significance.

Contrast that with the culture that we are currently living in. Most people are afraid to express need. They are willing to hide it at all costs. Some folks may even go as far as taking part in destructive, violent or unhealthy behavior just to cover up their needs. We label people weak or a burden if they are in need.

There are many examples of this is my own life. One trite example is a great metaphor for the bigger and deeper needs that we all keep hidden. A few years back, I decided I wanted to build a tree house for my three daughters. Now, although I was in construction years ago, I never built any structures, we were always involved with underground pipelines. So from the start, I knew I needed help. My ego and the little voice in my head told me that I should not burden someone else with my needs. Suck it up, build it yourself; I assumed my friends would not want to be burdened with my projects. So I set out on my own, to build this little tree castle by myself, ignoring my needs and my shortcomings.

Well, two years later, the tree house is still only 75% complete; the place looks like a cyclone hit it and my daughters are starting to get to old to enjoy it. Yet, I still have a tough time asking for help and admitting that I am needy. Reflecting on this, I have suddenly realized all of the things I have missed out on because of my inability to be honest about needs and vulnerable enough to ask for others to help meet those needs:

1. The Tree house is not complete
2. My daughters have missed out on two years of fun
3. I missed the chance to share an experience with a friend
4. I eliminated the opportunity for a friend to serve another
5. I missed out on community and fellowship
6. I have a half built tree house and I look at it with much regret
7. I have missed out on meeting a goal that I set for myself because I was unwilling to accept the help of others.

The willingness to acknowledge need and the humility to have that need met by others is a portal to a significant life; a life of community and service.

Now, don’t try to read into this something that I do not believe. You see, working hard and putting your best effort forward is a great attribute and we all need to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. I am often frustrated by the other side of our culture, the side that chooses to take the victimization road. “Oh, poor me, all of my needs are because of someone else and because of the general population not giving me a fair shake”. That is not the posturing of need I am endorsing or suggesting. I am talking about honest needs and shortcomings that each of us have and require others to fill with a clear balance that each of us is called to meet the needs of others.

Both of these cultural norms suck the humanity out of each and every one of us. It is a normal human condition to need. As children, we need a loving family. We need shelter, food and care. We need a place that is full of love giving us complete faith that we are significant. Yet, as we begin to stumble into adolescence and then come crashing into adulthood, “need” becomes a bad word; a stigma, a weakness.

But what if the willingness to need was a pathway to our hearts. A pathway that brings us together rather than separating us into to two groups: those who need and those who don’t. We all end up in the same bucket: those who need and at the same time those who meet the needs of others.

Let’s face it; no matter how tough you may think you are or how independent you want to be, at the core of our humanity, we still have the same needs as everyone else. The need for love, the need for security, the need for shelter and food, the need for community and friendship, the need to have a friend help us build a tree house. Guess what, no one on earth can provide for themselves all of the needs life demands.

The road to significance is filled with need; My needs and your needs. But the road to significance is different than success because on the road to significance, I am here to serve your needs and you are here to serve mine. Working together we can meet the needs of our own lives as well as the needs of the world.

On The road to significance, we all are needed and we all have needs that must be met by others.