People, People Who Need People, Are The Luckiest People In The World

Ok, so perhaps it is just the coming of spring that is making me all sentimental, but I’m about to get a little gushy on you. I was walking and talking with a friend this past Sunday afternoon, discussing some of the ways that my thinking has changed over the years. One such vein of thinking had to do with the concept of needing other people.

I used to think that it made me a strong, independent person when I used to say and think that I don’t need anyone. Sure I never denied that I “wanted” certain people in my life, but to me to ever “need” someone was a sign of weakness; it meant that you couldn’t be whole on your own or complete in your own self – somehow your identity was dependent on other people. Even the tired and overly drawn-out saying “you complete me” that Jerry Maguire made famous seemed like such a dangerous concept to me: if your sense of feeling complete is completely dependent on someone else, you constantly risk being incomplete, dissatisfied, and walking through life missing something.

Well, perhaps it is a sign of maturity, or perhaps it is just life experience that has taught me to think differently, but I am now a firm believer that we DO NEED people, and this is not a compromise of self-resilience, it is a basic fact that makes us human. The ability to disengage and make it through life alone is really contrary to human instinct and is seriously lonely. We are social beings for a reason. And let’s not forget that we still needed two human beings to come together to create us in the first place and then raise us past the age of complete dependence.

So, this tough girl is – GASP – letting her guard down and recognizing that perhaps needing isn’t such a bad concept. I am coming to this realization not because I’ve “fallen in love” or some sappy ridiculous notion like that (c’mon, let’s face facts, I’m still too immature for that :-P); this thought has occurred to me simply because I have come to realize that I am just happier living a life with important people in it than trying to go it alone.

Aside from feeling completely off-course when I was working my last retail job at Calvin Klein, I also felt miserable because I was incredibly alone. My roommates hardly ever saw me because I worked a polar opposite schedule to them, I never got to go home on weekends to visit family, I hardly ever had the time to hang out with friends, and I never really extended work relationships past the realm of work. I would get up, go to work, come home, repeat. I had very little time in my life to accommodate other things. Well, that’s not entirely true, I had plenty of time, but never time that matched up with others and their schedules.

There is a part of you that craves human interaction….a part that makes you human. I am a very independent person and completely fine being on my own, but every now and then I still get that desire to be around other people. John Donne said it best when he stated that “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main” (Meditation XVII). When we do go solo for too long, the result is loneliness – I don’t care how strong and independent you are, if you’ve never been lonely, then you aren’t human.
 

This past April Fools I really discovered my complete appreciation for people. It was a small thing, but the office pranks (initiated by me of course – I thought we already established that I’m not mature?!?!?!) made me feel like an integral part of something. It was just an incredibly fun day filled with foolishness, true, but a display of appreciation and friendship towards others. I have been incredibly happy recently because of all of these people at work. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of them, even if only superficially, and their presence in my life is a source of happiness. I am also incredibly grateful for absolutely everyone in my family, because I don’t even know who I would be and how I would get by without them. I also am unbelievably thankful for my friends (both old and new), because they are also a constant source of joy in my life. Can I survive without any of these people? Of course. But do I want to? Absolutely not. The truth is my quality of life would seriously be diminished with the absence of any of these people. Life is just truly a lot more meaningful with people in it that you care about and who care about you. As scary as the concept is, my life would indeed be incomplete without these integral human connections.