Unraveling the Trauma of Constantly Needing to Be Useful.

Most of my life, I’ve felt as though I had to earn my place in the world.
Not in any grand manner.
Just in that subtle, tiring way that says, Be helpful. Be of use. Avoid occupying space. Don’t make it about you.

I discovered early on that value comes from doing—showing up for others, staying out of the way, giving more than I asked for. At the time I don’t believe I was consciously aware of it. But somewhere deep in my wiring, a belief developed: If I’m not helping, I’m nothing.

Now I have to deal with something I cannot identify.

As I’ve created my job, my profession, and even this project on the notion that I must serve. That I must be useful to count.

But what if, on closer examination, that belief’s not all together accurate?

Recently, I’ve been wondering how much of this website is motivated by that ancient belief. How much of it is still influenced by fear—of feeling invisible, unlovable, useless. How often I sit down to produce material not from a sense of inspiration but rather from anxiety. From the feeling that if I’m not offering people anything, I’m failing.

And if I stop?
Should I choose to not push myself to serve, to perform, to be useful…
Then who will I to become?

I really have no idea.

Part of me is scared I would completely lose my drive. That I’ll become unmotivated, self-centered, or irrelevant. That without the need to demonstrate my worth, I will do nothing at all. And perhaps even deeper than that—perhaps I fear I’ll vanish.

But then again… perhaps that’s not what would occur.

Perhaps I would keep creating.
Maybe I would just begin to create differently.
Not from the dread of being nothing, but from the confidence that I’m already something—even when I am motionless, even when I’m not performing.

This conviction—that I have to work to merit love—did not appear out of nowhere. It’s old. For me, it goes back to my childhood. When love seemed conditional. When survival occasionally relied on being compliant, being quiet, being what someone else required.

It was a way to cope. A clever way.
But it turned into a prison.

Now I am starting to see the bars.

Daoist philosophy addresses this, in its own manner. Often rendered “non-doing,” wu wei is a concept that can be misinterpreted. It does not imply inactivity. It means acting from stillness. Creating from harmony instead of effort. Allowing your action to come from your being—not the reverse.

I’ve spent decades of “doing” to convince myself I have the right to exist.
What would reversing that look like?

What would it look like to build this project not as a means to claim my place, but rather as a means to express it?

I don’t have the answers yet.
But I’m sitting with the questions.
And that feels like a beginning.