How to Let Go and Start Living

How to Fulfill Your Two Greatest Needs

Think back to the day you were born. I know you can’t remember that day, but perhaps your parents have told you about what happened the day you were born. Hopefully your mother held you in her arms and looked into your eyes.

Most of us have mothers who wrapped us up, gave us lots of attention, and bonded with us. During those first years, your parents or caregivers took care of your physical and emotional needs.

The love you received as a child was just as important as the food, clothing, and care you received.

More than 120 years ago, Dr. Henry Chapin discovered that babies who were not loved usually died. The death rate of babies under 6 months who were living in hospitals and other institutions in New York was more than 60%.[i] Children living in institutions were given food and basic care, but they received very little attention. When these children were placed in homes and cared for, the death rate dropped to more normal levels. These young children were dying because they did not receive the love and attention they needed.

Your Number One Need

When you were a baby, your number one need was to be loved.

When you were a child, your number one need was to be loved.

Now, you are older, and your number one need is still to be loved. But as you grew older, you may have forgotten how much you need to be loved.

When I was 17 years old, I was planning my life and making big decisions. At school, my teachers encouraged me to find a career that I would enjoy and go to the best university I could afford. They told me that when I finished college, I would get a great job, make lots of money and be happy.

So, I found a prestigious college on the other side of the United States that I decided to attend. At 18 years old, I was going to leave my family, friends, and everyone I knew, and move thousands of miles away to pursue success. It was a cultural script that I had blindly accepted.

What about relationships? What about my need to be loved? I didn’t have a plan. It didn’t seem important enough to worry much about. I trusted that somehow, things would work out. I had learned that education and career success were the things that were really important.

Millions of young people follow this same cultural script every year. They leave their family and friends to go to school or start a job far away. They have dreams of success and a happy future. For some people this makes sense. For some people, it works out fine. They find friends and develop new relationships that fulfill their need to be loved. But others find themselves lonely and lost.

Many of us live in societies that have mixed up priorities. The culture we grow up in gives us a script for success. We swim in a sea of a thousand advertisements selling us the keys to success and happiness. We go to school, read books, buy the right clothes, use the right creams, eat the right foods, and do the right exercises, hoping we will find what we are looking for. But none of those things fill our need to be loved.

When we pursue the things that are supposed to make us happy, we discover something is missing.

If you feel incomplete, look at your life. Is your need to be loved fully met? Or are you busy following someone else’s script for success? Do you have someone you can really connect with every day on a deep and personal level? Or are you living life mostly alone?

Most of us don’t really receive the full amount of love we need on a daily basis.

You Can’t Buy Love

Perhaps one reason for this is that love isn’t something you can get. If you want money, you can work for it. If you want things, you can buy them. If you want experiences, you can go have those experiences. But love is something you can’t control. You can’t buy love. You can’t take it.

Love can only be given—freely, without force. You can’t make anyone love you.

Perhaps that is why we so often ignore our need to be loved. Since we don’t have any direct control over the love we receive, we can feel powerless to do anything about it.

How to Find Love

So how can you get the love you need?

This is one of the most important questions in life, and there are many wrong answers.

The biggest lie is that you can attract love into your life with your body. It is a popular lie for merchants because it allows them to sell you hope. You may want to believe this lie because it gives you a sense of hope and control. But it is the wrong answer, because it is focused on yourself.

The real way to find the love you need is to stop thinking about getting and start giving.

Think back again to the day you were born. There you are, in your mother’s arms. As your mother and father or other caregivers took care of you and loved you, it did a wonderful thing for them. It fulfilled one of their greatest needs. It fulfilled their need to be needed.

There are two things that we all yearn to know:

Does anyone love me?
Does anyone need me?

Most of your satisfaction in life is based on how you answer these two questions.

Many people never notice their need to be needed. But if no one needs you, you feel incomplete.

When you are needed, your life has significance. If you die, you will be missed.

Most suicidal people think that no one really loves them, and no one really needs them. They feel like everyone would be better off without them. But even someone who is severely depressed will usually hang on to life if they know that someone else depends on them.

You were born with a need to be needed—a need to fulfill the needs of others. When you help others and fulfill their needs, it fulfills your need to be needed, your need for meaning.

You’re in Control

One great thing about your need to be needed is that you are in complete control. We live in a world filled with people who are in need. Their number one need is to be loved. All you need to do is to show love to others.

Love can be as simple as helping your neighbor, helping a stranger, or helping a family member. It can be a kind word. A friendly greeting. An ear to listen. There are so many ways to give, so many ways to help, so many ways to show that you can. Your ability to love is only limited by your own time and energy. There is no lack of opportunity.

There is another great thing about your need to be needed. When you show love to others and meet their needs, the love you show often comes back to you. You can’t force anyone to love you. But when you love others, some of them will love you in return.

Giving love to others through your actions and words is the key to meeting your two greatest needs in life.

Giving without the Thought of Getting

As you give love to others in a selfless way, with no expectation of return, you fulfill your need to be needed. You fulfill your need for meaning.

Some of those who you love will respond with love, which will help fulfill your need to be loved.

I have given you a simple, but essential secret to a happy and meaningful life. If you take an honest look at your own life, you will probably see that you are not organizing your life and giving to and showing others.

If you are like most people, your life is organized around you. You are focused on your goals, your needs, your happiness. You spend your time on your education, your job, your hobbies and the activities you enjoy.

But if you only had one month left to live, how would you spend your time? You would suddenly remember what you really need. You would spend your final days taking care of the needs of others and spending time with them.

The secret to your happiness is in giving, not getting. It is the only way to meet your two greatest needs.

So what should you do?

Let Go and Start Living

When I was a child, I learned that you can trap a raccoon by putting a shiny coin into a bottle with a narrow hole. The raccoon has a hand like a monkey, and it will reach down into the bottle and grab the coin. Once it grabs the coin, its hand is too big to come out of the narrow hole at the top of the bottle. The raccoon won’t let go of the coin, so it will stay there, not knowing how to escape.

Perhaps you are like the raccoon—trapped in a life that isn’t meeting your need to be loved and your need to be needed. If so, all you need to do is let go. Let go of yourself and start living. Let go of getting and start giving. Let go of your empty goals and start fulfilling your two greatest needs.

Why not look at your schedule today and see what you can let go of? Then look around and find someone who needs you. Learn to give, with no expectation of return. But don’t be surprised when the love you show to others comes back to you.

Today I have given you the first key to living a life of meaning. In the remaining episodes I will teach you the rest of the keys you need to live a full and meaningful life.

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Do you know anyone who needs this lesson? If so, please pass along the gift!

[i] Gray, P.H. Henry Dwight Chapin: Pioneer in the study of institutionalized infants. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 27, 85–87 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329906

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