Know What You Need?
I rinse the stain from my brush, replace the lid on the can, and tap it into place with a rubber mallet. Then I walk into the kitchen where my husband is cooking dinner, put my solvent-smelling hands on his shoulders and say, “Tomorrow I need to go to the mountains.
Experience has taught him that I do not mean, “I want to go to the mountains.” When I get to this point, it’s more than a desire to be in the fresh air, listening to the birds and the breeze whispering through the trees. More than a wish to smell the damp earth and soak in the colors and textures of willows and sage and tall, tall pines. It’s more than a yearning to be immersed in the vast stillness of it all.
It is a need.
And we’ll both be better off if I take care of it.
Wants and Needs are two fundamental principles of social science. Through that lens, needs are considered to be those things we need for survival, such as water, food and shelter. So strictly speaking, going to the mountains is more of a want. Wants are the things we would like to have, that for one reason or another, we think will bring us happiness or satisfaction.
As I’ve been attempting to re-shape my life, I’ve moved some of my Wants to the Needs column.
Because surviving is not enough anymore. I want to thrive.
My physical needs for water, food, and shelter are accompanied by emotional needs for social interaction, sunlight, rest, and meaningful work.
But if I want to thrive as a writer. I have an additional set of needs.
Time:
The biggest, most pressing requirement. It equates to water, for me. Without time, I cannot survive as a writer, just as life cannot be sustained without water. I’m not talking about only the time to type sentences into my computer, but also the time to imagine, consider, plan, and immerse myself in the story or concepts I’m trying to convey.
Space:
I need physical and mental space to sequester myself from the world and all its noise and demands. It’s helpful to have a specific, consistent space to write in. Over time, just entering that space triggers an automatic response to start writing. I’m learning to write in different places, but I need a space that feels apart.
(Have you found a place that works for you, yet? )
Self-discipline:
Too bad this one has to be here. But self-discipline is just as vital to a writer as self-control is to a student. (See last week’s blog: Ten Important Things to Send to School With Your Child). Without self-control there is minimal learning happening at school, both for that student and the ones around them. For me as a writer, there is no writing in my life if I do not have the self-discipline to put my butt in the chair and start hammering out words.
Those first three are not new. They have long topped my list of requirements for writing. But I recently discovered another need that might be a game-changer for me.
I Need Silence.
Earlier this summer, as I set out for a morning walk, I discovered that my cell phone battery was dead. I’d have to forego the audiobook I’d been listening to on my daily walks.
I love audiobooks. The efficiency of listening to books while I tackle all the manual things on my to-do lists appeals to me. And since leaving my former career in the midst of the COVID shutdown, I have been plugged into audiobooks non-stop. They drown out my worries by occupying my thoughts.
At the same time, my mind does not explore my own stories and ideas while the audiobooks are playing.
Instead of listening to my audiobook that day, I noticed the way the sunlight caught the tops of the grasses and made them glow. The scents of the sunflowers, the amazing varieties of grasses stirring in the breeze, the quiet, all cleansed the worries from my mind, rather than covering them with something else.
I need the silence of a mountain trail that isn’t crowded with other hikers. The whispers in the trees, the gurgling of the creek, a wave lapping the lake shore. It can be the quiet of sunshine on the back porch, or moments of unspoken prayer.
It’s the only thing that erases all those real and digital voices that circle in my head like vultures. The fears, the anxiety, the indecision. The self-doubt. The lists.
Leaving me with an unspoiled space in my mind—the most vital space I need in order to create.
I am not alone. Several years ago I read an article about companies in Finland capitalizing on silence as a commodity. They started offering silence retreats. The article touted considerable scientific research supporting the idea that quiet is critical to a person’s well-being. When I was trying to find that article to reference it for this blog, I searched “need for silence” and received 471,000,000 hits. If you want to search for it, feel free. I’m sure you’ll find something that strikes a chord for you. Or you can watch Nick Seaver’s Tedx Talk “The Gift of Silence.”
A friend of mine recently confessed that she spends hours every evening exploring the Internet, everything from YouTube to Ted Talks. “I never experience quiet,” she said to me. “It’s sapping my creativity.”
Is that happening to you? Perhaps you need silence, too, even though you might not be a writer. Does your mind ever have the freedom to think—to wonder?—ponder?—imagine—that silence offers? Do you ever have time without the TV blaring, the computer screen flashing, the music streaming, the cellphone buzzing? In this world today, perhaps more than ever, we need the time, space, self-discipline, and silence to remember how to think for ourselves.
Or maybe you need something entirely different. Just as different types of occupations require different physical, mental, and emotional skill sets for success, the people fulfilling those roles have different needs in order to thrive within that role.
If we want to meet the demands our jobs and relationships place on each of us, we need to identify our needs before we can address them.
What do you need to survive? What do you need to thrive? As a person? In your role at work? Want to tell me about it? Write it in the comment section below.
If you don’t want to tell me about it, no worries. But Hold that Thought. Close.
