This is my question for this year… or my intention slash resolution… to feel enough.

Not enough as in “I’ve snapped, I have had enough,” or “effing pandemic” or “Oh, I think that last piece of turkey breast put me over the edge, and now I’ve definitely had enough.”

Enough, in the sense of: at ease in the ultimate okayness of me, you and everything around us.

I am doing enough. I am good enough. I am trying hard enough. I have enough.

And so is everyone else.

I guess, in a way, it’s the Goldilocks pledge… to practice feeling as if what I have is just right – not too much, not insufficient, not too hot, not too cold.

To feel that the hour of personal time I got, even though I didn’t get all the things I wanted to done, was enough. To feel that the chance to listen to a bit of a podcast, even though I didn’t get through it all, was enough. To feel that the phone call conversation with a friend, that was cut off when my kid came home early, was enough. To feel that the dinner I made for my family, even though it didn’t have orange or green vegetables, was enough.

It is what it is, and it’s enough.

And yes, of course there’s a niggling voice in that back of my head that is saying, “you know that’s the path to mediocrity and complacency, don’t you? You know the only people who ever achieved anything kept on striving, never settled, never said enough, never quit. You know the world-changers who helped make the world a better place never said, ah, that’s enough, I can rest now and have a cup of tea and just let the climate collapse, slavery, exploitation, do it’s thing.”

But here’s the thing. I can’t be everywhere, save everyone, do everything. Expecting myself to will have one certain consequence: I will spectacularly fail to enjoy my own life.

And what if, my joy and ease, in my own skin and circumstances, is not self indulgent, is not greedy, is not a hoarding of privilege, but is actually a way that energy radiates out from me in a positive way. What if it frees things up, releases things, for me to experience ease and joy and enough ness… and then all that abundance, instead of being locked away in my treasure chest, is free to move through the world.

What if the secret to it all is to be able to recognize “enough ness?”

I heard the Australian actor, Damon Gameau, tell the Futuresteading podcast, that in his work, he’d been able to get to know some extremely wealthy people – like, billionaires. And he’d asked them, at what point will you have enough? You have so much more than pretty much everyone else on Earth. When is it enough? And what he learned from spending time with them, whether they were able to articulate it or not, is that most of them were driven by a bone-deep sense of scarcity – of love, of acceptance – often, from their childhoods or their fathers – and there was actually no amount of money or power they could accumulate that would ever be enough, because they were seeking some sense of ease in themselves that was never actually going to come from the money or power or the trappings.

These people have so much power, and are doing so much damage in the world, mis-placing or abusing or garnering more of that power, and yet, the root of the problem, and all their excess, is they don’t feel as if they’re enough. And so they can never possibly accumulate enough wealth or fame or accolades.

So, that’s my project.

So far, so good. I haven’t fixed the world. I haven’t accomplished much to speak of. But I’ve worried a lot less about how I’m measuring up, I’m full of gratitude and I’m enjoying my days.

Want to try it?