There are some things we want just because we want them, and
there are some things we want because we need them. Intimacy
is a need. You cannot live long without food to eat and water
to drink, and it would all be over in a matter of minutes without air
to breathe. Food to eat, water to drink, and air to breathe are legitimate
needs. So is intimacy. You can survive without it. But you
cannot thrive and become the-best-version-of-yourself.
There is a restlessness within each of us that wants to be
calmed, tamed. This restlessness is our heart’s yearning for intimacy.
In our efforts to feel complete, worthy, fulfilled, and contented,
we often chase pleasure, possessions, and achievement. We
convince ourselves that if we can experience the right type of pleasure,
amass enough possessions, or attain certain accomplishments,
the restlessness will be overcome and we will finally have a sense of
fulfillment and contentment. But while each encounter with pleasure,
possessions, and achievement can be very satisfying for the
brief moment they are experienced in, the aftermath of these experiences
leaves us yearning for something more.
So we chase more intense pleasures, larger piles of possessions,
and grander achievements, mistakenly believing that this time we will
find fulfillment. But we don’t, and in the absence of another path, we
repeat the process over and over and over again, until we die. We remain
restless until the end. We continue to subscribe to the myth that
pleasure, possessions, and achievement will fulfill us. Yet after each
encounter we are left with the same dissatisfied aftertaste.
Why?
You simply never can get enough of what you don’t really need.
What is it that we really need?
We don’t need more money, faster cars, bigger houses, or
grander promotions. The human person needs one thing above all
else: intimacy.
We continue to chase our illegitimate wants and neglect our legitimate
needs. The result is that we live in restless discontent.
Contentment is to be found only by creating a lifestyle that tends
to our legitimate needs, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
Intimacy is one of our real and legitimate needs, and all the
pleasures, possessions, and achievements on the planet will not satisfy
you as the fulfillment of your legitimate needs will. The mutual
fulfilling of legitimate needs is the pinnacle of relationships.
This is what it means to be soul mates.
Do you ever get the feeling that something is wrong, or that
something is missing in your life? Do you ever get the sense that
there must be more to life?
Something is wrong.
Something is missing.
There is more.
Intimacy.
Matthew Kelly
From The Seven Levels of Intimacy
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