Needing to Be Used

I'm a people pleaser. I don't like letting anyone down ever so when someone needs something, I always offer to be the one to help. I think it's a personal insecurity or fear of being unliked. I like being needed. I like knowing that someone somewhere needs me. I have a hard time telling people "no". Lately it's been becoming a real problem. I sit there in my mind listening to people rant off their expected needs from me and I stress over scheduling them into my twenty-four hours. By the time they finish listing off their sentences, my mind is whirling and rather than admitting any of this - I always agree. 

There's a line between being needed and being used. I'm always sitting on the line watching the lives that surround mine and wonder if I'm really at use for them. If they really need me or if I'm just the poor sap they suckered into doing their dirty work. I invest. I invest in everything I do. None of my life is my own but I'm invested in all of it. The misconstrued notion of becoming a necessity is unjustified because in reality I'm replaceable. I'm replaceable like a worn shoe; faithful and patient carrying others around but once they show ware it's time to invest in something new. I'm not something new, I'm something used. 

A bruised reality of an old worn our shoe.