The price of being needed is everything you have and everything you are. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be you who’s needed, just someone. And anyone can be someone. It takes you to be you. The real question is, are you willing to pay?
To pay the price of being needed. To give yourself away entirely, the only thing you really have, to someone who’s suffering. Someone stubborn. Someone short tempered. Someone miserly who wouldn’t return the favor. Being needed is not the same as being wanted, and the person who needs you may not deserve the gift.
And what is it to deserve someone else? Is it to be good enough to receive him? Then why would you need him? Is it to be blameless? Then you definitely don’t need him. The reason you need him, the only reason anyone needs anyone, is because you don’t deserve him.
And still you’ve gotten help. You’ve received what you need, given freely, with no expectation of payback. It’s the only reason you’re here. If you hadn’t been gifted what (or whom) you need, you wouldn’t be here. You’re here because of the gift, and a gift cannot be paid back. It can only be paid forward.
So you pay it forward. You give yourself away, just like He gave Himself away. You pay the price others cannot afford: yourself. Only you have you, and they have them. But them isn’t what’s needed, not this time. In this situation, the only thing that will do, is you.
But it’s strange, you’ll notice, that the more of yourself you give away, the more you have. Because you, the real you, was always made of what’s given away. Whatever you cling to, you lose, but what you give away, you keep. Hoarders have nothing. That’s why they are nothing. Givers have everything, and they are everything.
So the price of being needed is all that you are. But more importantly, anything that’s anything is only itself because it’s needed. Everything else is nothing at all.