The Ego’s Hunger. (3 min 34 sec)

I was riding in an Uber recently, and the driver — a young woman—started sharing how happy she was to finally have a car. She said, “Now I can help people get around, like I always wanted.” She was proud of being able to offer something, to feel essential, to play a role in others’ lives. But something struck me: people were getting around just fine before she had a car, before Uber even existed. Yet, in her mind, having this car now made her indispensable.

This Uber driver’s pride was a glimpse into a deeper, universal phenomenon: the ego’s relentless need to feel needed, indispensable, valued because of what it provides. Her joy wasn’t just about owning a car — it was tied to a sense of worth rooted in being necessary to others. And this urge, though subtle, reflects a powerful, often overlooked need of the ego: to be essential, to matter, to fill a space in someone else’s life.

The ego convinces us that our value depends on others needing us. It whispers, “They need me; I’m important because of what I provide.” In the Uber driver’s case, the car wasn’t just transportation; it was a symbol of her worth, an external role that made her feel meaningful. And here’s the irony — the ego clings to this idea because, deep down, it senses its own emptiness.

This “need to be needed” is like a patch over the ego’s fragile sense of self. It masks an inner void, one that the ego doesn’t want to confront. So it clings to any role, any opportunity to feel essential, as if our existence becomes validated when others depend on us. The ego thrives on this idea, inflating itself, creating a sense of purpose around the idea of being indispensable.

When we tie our worth to being needed, we’re essentially patching up a leak with temporary fixes. This dependency creates a cycle of external validation. We rely on the outside world to reflect back a sense of value that feels fragile and incomplete. Yet, if we’re honest, the world keeps spinning, needs get met in other ways, life flows on whether we’re there or not. The Uber driver’s car may be useful, but the world didn’t need it to keep functioning.

The ego doesn’t want to acknowledge that; it feels threatened by the idea of being unnecessary, replaceable. So it attaches to roles, to identities built on helping, serving, or being the one who “makes a difference.” But fulfillment, real wholeness, isn’t found in these roles. When we cling to the need to be needed, we’re filling our sense of self with a shaky foundation.

The irony is that self-worth isn’t contingent on what we can provide or who relies on us. Our worth simply is, whole and complete in itself. When we let go of the need to be needed, we’re free to experience life without clinging, without defining ourselves through others’ dependency. Realizing this frees us from a constant search for external validation, allowing us to step back and recognize that our value doesn’t fluctuate based on what we do for others.

When we see through the ego’s game, when we recognize that this “need to be needed” is just a cover for its own insecurity, we begin to experience a sense of inner peace. We no longer need to prove our worth to anyone because we see that it’s intrinsic, not conditional. The irony is that when we stop chasing after the need to feel essential, we become more open, more present, more genuinely ourselves.

Fulfillment isn’t found in making ourselves indispensable to others; it’s found in realizing that our worth doesn’t depend on anyone else. In letting go of the ego’s craving for validation, we find a peace that’s unshaken by roles, identities, or the need to feel essential. We don’t need to be needed to feel whole — we already are. And in this realization, there’s freedom: a release from the ego’s hunger, and a return to the simple, unshakable worth that was always within.

So, the next time you feel the urge to be “needed,” ask yourself: who’s really seeking this role? The ego’s game is to make you believe you’re incomplete without it. The truth? You were already whole, long before the need ever showed up.

#thinkgod
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