I don’t know what we’d do without you.
You always know what to do.
You’re so strong.
You’re the one I can count on.
You handle everything.
I knew you’d take care of it.
None of those statements are inherently bad. Being dependable is a good thing. Being competent is useful. Caring for people we love is part of being in relationship with other humans. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about being the person who can walk into a chaotic situation, look around, and start figuring out what needs to happen next.
I happen to be pretty freaking good at that.
But there is a difference between being useful and believing usefulness is the price of admission.
There is a difference between enjoying competence and needing to demonstrate competence before you feel worthy of taking up space.
There is a difference between choosing to help and having absolutely no idea who you are when nobody needs anything from you.
And for a lot of us, those lines get blurry.
Not because we’re foolish.
Because usefulness gets rewarded.
We Like Useful People
Our culture talks constantly about productivity, but productivity isn’t only about jobs.
It creeps into nearly everything.
We optimize mornings.
We track habits.
We monetize hobbies.
We turn rest into “recovery” so it can justify itself by improving tomorrow’s performance.
We count steps while walking.
We measure sleep while sleeping.
We turn reading into goals, meditation into streaks, exercise into data, creative work into content, and hobbies into side hustles.
Even self-care frequently gets sold back to us as maintenance for the machine.
Rest so you can be more productive.
Meditate so you can focus better.
Exercise so you can work longer.
Take a vacation so you can return refreshed and ready to grind.
Apparently even lying on a beach needs a quarterly performance objective.
And then there is care work.
Parenting.
Housework.
Emotional labor.
Remembering birthdays.
Making appointments.
Noticing the toilet paper is running low before anyone else discovers it at an extremely inconvenient moment.
Knowing which kid needs new shoes.
Knowing which prescription needs refilling.
Knowing what food the dog can’t eat.
Knowing whose feelings are hurt even though they said they’re fine.
Knowing that if you don’t do the thing, there is a very real possibility that the thing simply will not happen.
A tremendous amount of human life depends on people doing work that may never appear on a résumé.
When you become good at that work, usefulness can become an identity surprisingly quickly.
People need you.
People appreciate you.
People praise you.
And maybe somewhere along the way, being needed starts feeling suspiciously similar to being loved.
That’s where things can get complicated.
Being Needed Can Feel Safer Than Being Loved
Being needed has rules.
If somebody needs something and you provide it, you understand your place in the relationship.
There’s a problem.
You solve it.
There’s a crisis.
You respond.
Someone is hurting.
You comfort them.
Something needs organizing.
You organize it.
The equation makes sense.
Love is considerably messier.
Love asks us to believe that somebody might want us around even when we aren’t doing anything particularly impressive.
That they might still enjoy us when we’re tired.
That they might still value us when we’re inconvenient.
That we can say no.
That we can need things.
That we can have a bad day.
That we can fail.
That we can disappoint them and still remain worthy of relationship.
That we can sit on the couch in pajama pants eating snacks and contribute absolutely nothing to the advancement of civilization for an entire evening.
Being useful can sometimes feel much safer.
Because usefulness gives us evidence.
Look.
I did the thing.
Therefore I belong here.
But what happens when you can’t do the thing?
Bodies Have an Annoying Habit of Being Bodies
A lot of people can maintain an identity built around usefulness for years because their circumstances allow it.
Then something changes.
Maybe illness arrives.
Maybe disability changes.
Maybe chronic pain changes what a day can hold.
Maybe menopause kicks down the door carrying a flamethrower and absolutely no respect for your previous operating procedures.
Maybe age changes recovery time.
Maybe burnout finally collects the debt you’ve been refinancing for a decade.
Maybe there isn’t one dramatic event at all.
You simply realize that the pace you’ve been maintaining is no longer sustainable.
And suddenly the person who could always handle everything can’t.
Or won’t.
Sometimes won’t is even harder.
Because when your body forces you to stop, at least you have an explanation.
When you decide:
I could probably keep doing this, but I don’t want my entire life to require this much of me anymore,
that can bring up a whole different collection of feelings.
Who am I to say no when technically I could manage?
Who am I to rest before I’m completely depleted?
Who am I to ask someone else to do something I know I could do better?
Who am I to choose the easier option?
Who am I if I’m capable of carrying it and decide not to?
Maybe you’re a person who finally realized that capacity is not consent.
Being capable of doing something does not automatically make it your responsibility.
That’s a difficult lesson when capability has become part of your identity.
The Strong One Has Needs, Too
“The strong one” is one of those roles that can look wonderful from the outside.
Nobody means it as an insult.
They trust you.
They admire you.
They’ve seen what you can survive.
But sometimes the strong person begins disappearing behind the strength.
People stop asking whether you’re okay because, historically, you usually are.
Or at least you look like you are.
You know how to function.
You know how to make the call.
Fill out the form.
Drive to the appointment.
Deal with the emergency.
Make dinner.
Take care of the animal.
Handle the work.
Keep the schedule.
Crack a joke.
Keep going.
And because you can, sometimes nobody notices what it costs.
Including you.
Until one day you can’t keep paying.
Then there’s an identity crisis sitting right beside the exhaustion.
Because if I’m not the person who can handle anything, who the hell am I?
If I’m the one who needs help now, have I become somebody else?
Maybe.
But perhaps the identity that needs to die isn’t strong.
Maybe it’s:
Strength means I never need anything.
Those aren’t the same thing.
The Caretaker Isn’t the Care
This gets especially tangled when caring for other people genuinely matters to you.
I don’t want an individualistic version of wellness where the answer to every difficult relationship is boundaries, blocking, and announcing that nobody is entitled to anything from us ever.
That’s not how community works.
We do owe things to one another.
Not unlimited access.
Not self-destruction.
But care?
Yeah.
I think we owe each other some freaking care.
Communities survive because people show up.
Families function because people do things for each other.
Friendships deepen because sometimes somebody needs more than they can immediately return.
Mutual aid exists because humans have always survived by sharing resources, knowledge, labor, and protection.
The problem isn’t caring.
The problem is when caretaker becomes such a complete identity that receiving care feels like a violation of the role.
When everybody else gets to be complicated, needy humans and you get to be infrastructure.
You are not infrastructure.
You’re a person.
You can be deeply committed to caring for other people and still be someone who requires care.
Those things aren’t opposites.
In healthy community, they’re supposed to rotate.
Sometimes I carry you.
Sometimes you carry me.
Sometimes we both sit on the floor and admit neither of us is carrying shit today, so we’re ordering dinner.
That’s still community.
What Happens When Nobody Needs You Right Now?
That question can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.
Imagine, just for a moment, that everybody you care about is okay.
Nobody needs rescuing.
Nobody needs advice.
Nobody has a crisis.
There is no urgent work waiting.
No task you forgot.
No appointment to arrange.
No person whose emotions need managing.
Nothing is on fire.
What do you do?
Not what should you do.
Not what productive project could finally receive your attention.
What do you actually want to do?
Some people know immediately.
Some of us stare into the middle distance like we’ve been asked to explain quantum physics using interpretive dance.
Because desire is a different skill from usefulness.
If you spend enough time asking:
What needs to be done?
you may stop asking:
What do I want?
And wanting can feel frivolous.
Especially when there is always more work somewhere.
There is always somebody suffering.
Always another cause.
Another task.
Another email.
Another load of laundry.
Another way you could be useful.
The work is literally never finished.
If you require the entire world to stop needing things before you’re allowed to exist for your own sake, you are going to be waiting a very long time.
You Are Allowed to Be Delightfully Useless Sometimes
I want to reclaim uselessness a little.
Not permanent disengagement.
Not refusing responsibility.
Not abandoning people who depend on us.
Just the ordinary human experience of doing something that does not need to justify the resources it consumes.
Make art nobody sees.
Sing badly.
Read a trashy book.
Play a game.
Watch the birds.
Learn something that will never make you money.
Take a nap that isn’t optimizing anything.
Spend forty-five minutes looking at pictures of animals.
Bake something unnecessarily complicated because you want to know if you can.
Sit outside.
Watch a movie you’ve already seen twelve times.
Have a conversation that accomplishes nothing.
Be ridiculous.
Be curious.
Be bored.
Be alive.
There is something almost rebellious about refusing to turn every part of yourself into output.
Especially if you have spent years believing your output is what makes you valuable.
Maybe Usefulness Is Something You Do
This week, we’re talking about letting identities die.
I don’t want usefulness itself to die.
I like being useful.
I like knowing things.
I like helping.
I like being the person who can say, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”
I like teaching.
I like creating things that help somebody understand themselves or their practice differently.
I’m not interested in becoming useless as a permanent state of being.
But I am interested in moving usefulness out of the center of identity.
Maybe usefulness is something I do.
Not proof of what I’m worth.
Maybe strength is something I have.
Not a contract requiring me to use it every time something heavy appears.
Maybe care is something I give.
Not the rent I pay for belonging.
Maybe productivity is one mode of being alive.
Not the purpose of being alive.
And maybe some identities don’t need dramatic funerals.
Maybe they just need demotions.
The Strong One becomes someone who is strong.
The Caretaker becomes someone who cares.
The Reliable One becomes someone who can be relied upon—and who can occasionally say, “Not today.”
The Useful One becomes a whole human being who is sometimes extraordinarily useful and sometimes wrapped in a blanket doing absolutely nothing of measurable value.
That person is still worthy of love.
Still worthy of community.
Still worthy of care.
Still worthy of rest.
Still worthy of being here.
Your HeartFire is not a pilot light for everybody else’s needs.
It doesn’t exist merely to warm the room for everyone around you.
It belongs to you.
So yes, be useful.
Help people.
Show up.
Care deeply.
Do good work.
Carry something when you have the capacity and choose to carry it.
And sometimes, put the freaking thing down.
You do not have to earn your existence by being the person everyone needs.
Sometimes you are allowed to simply be the person who is here. 🔮💜