Being Needed and Being Necessary

There is a difference between being needed and being necessary. We can be needed in a variety of circumstances from work to service organizations, religious communities to sports clubs. But we can be necessary only to a very few persons. To be necessary means to be irreplaceable. And we are irreplaceable only to family members and close friends.

We are not irreplaceable in the work place. In most work settings, people did your job before you arrived and others will do it after you leave. It won’t take much time before your former places of work and habitation will know you no longer.

In my situation, many pastors served the churches I served before I came on the scene, and many will serve after I leave. So I have been needed temporarily for this or that function, which comes with the office of pastor, but I was not really necessary to the people I served; others can and have and will do what I did in addition to me, from preaching to marrying, baptizing to burying. And some will do it better, others not as well as I did. The reality is, though I may be unforgettable to some, I will be a mere “Hal was here” memory to others.

I very much enjoyed my work, but I slowly became realistic. I have gained a mature perspective on who and what I am – and what I am not. The more important we believe ourselves to be, the more irreplaceable we will figure we have become to whatever enterprises we are devoted to. The more important we believe ourselves to be, the more difficult it will be to let go of what we have invested in when it is time to let it go.

It is important to feel needed, that you matter and make a difference. And it is good to feel appreciated, for if you do not feel appreciated, then instead of feeling needed you will likely feel used. But it is just not healthy to believe you are necessary and irreplaceable outside your family.

Yet we are tempted to think of ourselves as being irreplaceable. It strengthens our self-esteem and motivates our continuing labor. Who among us does not relish feeling needed? Yet who wants to feel necessary, irreplaceable? To feel that way puts heavy stress and responsibility on our shoulders. If you feel irreplaceable, if no one but you can do this or that task, see that it gets done right and on time, it will be impossible for you to let go of it or it of you.

It is vital to our psychic and spiritual health to put being necessary above being needed. Family must come before community. Some people expend overmuch of themselves in their community, invest precious time and energy in projects from Church to the Chamber of Commerce, while at the same time neglecting to be as available and willing to give of themselves to their family. They give more to their work or community than to their home.

Why would persons spend so much time being needed where they are replaceable and so little time where they are necessary and irreplaceable? Perhaps they feel more appreciated outside their family, or they seek to gain prestige and significance in their community at the cost of significance in their home. True fulfillment in life comes, not from where you are needed, but from where you are necessary. Never sacrifice a greater value for a lesser one.