Does The World Really Need My Words?

I’ve been seeing this message a lot lately.

“The world needs your words.”

“The world needs what you have to put forth.”

“Write your words because we all need them.”

I can’t help but question if this message is true.

Is there a pressing demand for me to write because the world will end without my words?

Realistically, I don’t think so.

In this wildly content-saturated, how-to-obsessed, speak-my-truth time and age, I just can’t imagine that it needs one more voice.

So, does that mean I’m wasting my time?

Should I just give up and never create again?

Must I be needed to exist?

Must I be needed to create?

Again, I don’t think so.

So let me ask a different question.

What do you need?

Do you need the words you write like the air you breathe? If a day goes by in which you don’t let them out to play, do they harass you like a persistent toddler wanting their way? Do you have characters who assault your every waking moment, haunting your reality, until you give them a world of their own? Do you become restless, edgy, overwhelmed, irritable, confused, or empty, if you don’t put pen to paper? Do you hear that eternal, ever-present voice beckoning you back to the craft, over and over and over and over again, speaking to you in the deepest recesses of your consciousness, whispering, “This is what you were created for.”

If you answered yes, to any of those questions, might I venture to say, “That is enough?”

Even if the world will continue spinning without another single one of your words, the desire inside you to create beauty from them is enough. Then perhaps, after what once was a blank page is now filled with magic and wonder, then I hope you will be brave enough to share it with the world; because then again, what if I’m wrong and your words are needed after all?