When Did Enough Stop Being Enough?

My musings these days have been swirling around a question of enough and my pursuit of its answer. When did enough stop being enough?

It seems as if there is never enough for us to be content, yet if you look at the bigger picture, there is often more than enough to meet our needs. Dictonary.com defines enough as “as much or as many as required.” So I guess to know what is enough, I must first understand what is required and what is essential.

Side note: As I write, I am thinking of western culture, for many parts of the world understand the value of enough differently or sadly live with far less than we would consider being enough.

Like many, I prefer to have just in case funds padding my bank account, my pantry well supplied, and I tend to store an excess amount of books, clothes, and all the household things. Do I need five pairs of boots in my closet? Probably not? But I could perhaps argue that they were essential to the completion of all my fall and winter outfits and therefore needed for me to have enough boots?

There was a time when people lived in homes with just enough space. They worked just enough to pay the bills and had just enough stuff to support living their life. But somewhere along the line, just enough became not enough. Our houses grew bigger to store all the things we collected, and as a result, we now work longer and harder to maintain the life we thought we wanted, and somehow we still find it to be not enough.

Always chasing, never catching, the targets always in motion, how then shall we know what is enough?

Always going, never staying, always doing, never being, how do we hold the tension between pursuing dreams and contentment with what is?

To be honest, I have more questions than answers when it comes to enough.

Do I have enough money when I can pay my bills, even if nothing remains?

Do I own enough when I have a regular place to lay my head at night and people to love?

What if I am van Gogh and the world does not recognize me or my work in my lifetime, only to appreciate it after I am gone. Was my life not enough in my living if its impact is understood only after my death?

What if all the words written are only read by an audience of one? Is the impact on that one not enough? Is the work itself not enough?

What is required to say I have enough? To say I have lived enough? To say I am enough?

My enough and your enough can be very different, yet we can both have enough. Thankfully there is no line to be drawn, no target to hit, for enough is often a matter of perspective. It is an individual, case by case, one-of-a-kind understanding of what we see as essential. Which takes us back to the question, what is our essential?

I will never reach enough if I first do not understand how I define and measure what I believe to be essential. And I think these questions are worth asking and answering. Because if I can learn to be content with enough, with what is, then I am free to pursue more without fear of failure, selfish gain, or comparison to others. When I understand the beauty of enough, I do not need to be more and therefore am free to pursue a dream without impact on my identity.

Perhaps, in our ability to recognize that we are already enough, we are free to become so much more.

@joy.marker