The Need to Love vs. The Need to Matter

As a man in later middle age, my life has been riddled by an unexpected inner conflict between living a life of love and living a life that matters. It never occurred to me that the two would be in competition or conflict, but on reflection, I realize that my entire life has been steeped in this conflict. I always sensed that I had the potential to live a life that matters, I felt that I could make a difference, that I had something unique to contribute, and that I could be part of the solution. And yet, I sacrificed thirty years of my adult life to shit that didn’t matter at all — business consulting and solving urgent business problems that would just be replaced by new problems tomorrow. I did it to make money, and I tried to use that money to express love. Money won’t buy happiness, they say, and it certainly won’t buy love. It also cannot make you matter.

Every man wants to love. Indeed, every human wants to love. We have deeply powerful forces within us that push us to love. We want to love because it adds completeness to our lives. That deep desire is there because love opens a connection in us. It opens our hearts. It brings such intense joy. I am not sure there is a more powerful, joyful experience than love.

For me at least, and maybe for many men, love can be all-consuming. Yes, it has different flavors, so to speak. Love may involve an infatuation, a deep desire, or adoration. Perhaps your love becomes a sacred love. It seems to always move, grow, and change yet holds steady with the deepening connection with your partner. It brings such glory, and you want to bask in it. Your partner is a joy, your life is a joy. You go along just loving the love, loving your partner, singing the heart’s love song loud and clear.

And then one day, it begins. You are at midlife. You look at your work. You look at your life. You did well, but your success and your money didn’t matter. And you wonder: Is this it? Will I matter? Does anything matter?

This is crisis time.

It is crisis time because you realize that, despite your love-joy, you do not matter. (And if your love-joy has waned, your crisis is even worse.) You’ve left no legacy. The love-joy feels fleeting, and you’ve had little influence beyond your family and friends. You start to wonder: Do I matter? It is a brutal question. It oozes with urgency. You are sixty years old. Friends have already died at younger ages — cancer, drug interactions, suicides — their lives snuffed out without the time to matter. You feel healthy… then you remember, so did your friends. There are no guarantees. So, what the hell am I doing? What am I willing to leave undone in this life?

And the answer comes back: I am busy loving. Hence, the two are in conflict. My God, I can’t love and not matter! Something has to change! And then, the one inside you who needs to matter begins to take over. That one inside you becomes nasty and brutish, looking for every activity that takes time but isn’t serving the need to matter. It pulls out a sword and starts slicing and dicing things. It cuts at financial obligations. It cuts at time requirements. And it tries to cut away your love. For it has only its needs in mind, not yours generally. It is like a terrorist of the soul, looking for domination; an authoritarian who will take no prisoners. It seeks to own you. In my case, it wins… but only for a while.

That’s because a man who only matters and does not love is a sad soul indeed. He is isolated, lonely, and desperate. He has needs that mattering alone cannot meet — needs for connection, companionship, interaction, and completion. In effect, he needs to love.

As the need to love returns and grows again in his awareness, the commitment to mattering no longer holds sway. It becomes the thing that prevents love. He finds himself easily walking away from the commitments made for mattering — practices adopted to enhance it, important relationships for making an impact in the world, and methods for manifesting. All this time, the joy of love grows again. You love the loving, love your partner, and sing that heart song once again.

Soon you ask again: Will I matter? And the whole cycle starts over again.

This is how it has worked for me.

I have found myself, then, making decisions to optimize the thing that possesses me at a given time. When the need for love owns my psyche, I am dedicated to growing love, and anything that gets in my way, including doing my work to matter, becomes de-prioritized. When in that love, I can make decisions with long-lasting effects. Those decisions may damage my ability to work at mattering, even though the need to matter will come back as a crucial need.

On the other hand, when the need to matter owns my psyche, love can feel like an obstacle with its demands for attention, compromise, and time. The necessary flow gets interrupted at times, and that can even build resentment toward the beloved, and as a result, she pays a price for my inner conflict. Again, I can make decisions with long-lasting consequences to a love relationship based on this temporary obsession with mattering.

I have made a beginner’s mistake with all this. Robert Johnson, in his book Inner Work, describes the goal of inner self-development to be one of balancing the effects of these different inner personas — in this case, the one who must love and the one who must matter. He argues that we all have multiple aspects of ourselves — a kind of parade of personas within — and the goal is to integrate and balance them so that the focus on any one doesn’t dominate one’s life. My mistake has been to let one dominate the other. It’s as if I ride one horse all the way, jump horses, then ride the next horse in a completely different direction. This is the road to pain and agony, so I am wary of riding horses; no single persona should be allowed to dominate.

I suspect that most men have this conflict and that most of them don’t realize it. As an old friend said to me when he was 54, “As I finish my career I wonder, ‘Is this it? Is this all there is to the journey of life?’” Recently (ten years later) he asked me the same question: “Is this it?” This is how most men ask the real underlying question: Do I matter?

For others who have found their way to substantial success, the question drives down the other road. They feel like they were successful enough to matter and make a difference, but their question becomes: “Am I happy? Does anyone care?” And all too often, the answer is no. All too often, the price of that success has been paid for in the relational junk strewn about the roadside.

Ultimately, this conflict must be resolved with integration. Both needs are real, and both needs must be met to end the disruptive conflicts in the psyche. In late middle age, time is of the essence. This is the time we need to practice centering, bring compassion and awareness to ourselves and others, and enable all the beings of the psyche to have their day.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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