The medicine of enough.
I only watch terrible television. Mostly strangers looking for love in pods and reruns of old shows. I only watch terrible television because when I scroll through all of the options I think I will never be able to watch all of the good stuff, so why try?
Do you ever get a pit in your stomach in a library or bookstore because you know you won’t be able to read everything you want to read? I have a friend who reads 50 books a year. That is almost one a week. He started when we were 22 and, if he continues this for the next 58 years, that is 2,900 books. A study by Google Books estimates there are 158,464,880 books that have been published since Gutenburg shared his press with the world in 1440. So, this friend will read .00183% of books in his reading career. That scares the shit out of me. I don’t read a book a week, so I will never know all of the things I should know. I am more like a .000878% reader.
This is where the medicine of enough comes in as a soothing balm.
At some point, it has to be enough. Enough work, enough knowledge, enough editing, enough forcing. If a challenging conversation is moving in circles, maybe that is enough for today and it can be picked back up when another direction is possible.
Do you do what you love enough?
Did you define “enough” for yourself or did others define it for you? Take out a pencil and write your enough manifesto. This has to be a personal measurement, otherwise we will be susceptible to hearing and feeling like we can never and will never quite do enough.
I have a joke with my partner that only I think is funny. It started when we were talking about animals we might want to care for someday, and I joked that I was going to have a baby bison delivered to her home because I thought she would be a great bison parent. This joke ballooned and became a part of many conversations. Then, I found myself absolutely giddy at a cafe in Buenos Aires ordering tiny bison figurines to hide around her house. I had the option of ordering 10, 20, 50, 100, or 200 mini bison. My love of the bit made me want to order the max amount. But, come on, 200 mini bison? 200 would have smothered the humor and joy and, quite frankly, her home in tiny bison. Enough doesn’t smother. Enough supports, holds, and leaves room for air and curiosity. So, I ordered 20 and 20 was perfect. She still hasn’t found them all. Especially because I keep moving them once she does find them.
If life is a buffet and we fill our whole plate with jello salad then there isn’t room for any of the other, better, more nourishing and delicious things. If you find your plate is only jello salad, you can scrape it off and start over and put a rightsized amount of everything you want on your plate. If jello salad is your thing, then, by all means, don’t let my definition of enough sway you out of piling it high on your plate.
So, go forth and define enough for yourself. Commit to your enough. Share it with your beloveds. Compare notes, but don’t let their truth change yours. Only you can define this for yourself and your current capacity.
You heard it here first folks: enough is enough.