We are all pretty much obsessed with the question “Am I enough?”, right? Am I good enough? Am I doing enough? Am I successful enough? Am I impactful enough? Am I present enough?
I see it in so many of my clients. And I see it in myself. Too often, we judge ourselves to fall short of enough. And so we feel shame or discontentment. And so we push ourselves harder and harder so we can finally someday achieve this elusive enoughness.
When posed with these questions, it might feel most constructive to simply answer in the affirmative. We let ourselves, our loved ones, or our clients know that they are indeed already enough. We take stock of their lives and help them see how much they’ve done, how hard they have worked, how many lives they’ve touched.
I appreciate the general sentiment, of course. But I think it might ultimately do us a disservice.
Our whole modern society, in some sense, is built around the pursuit of enoughness. This pursuit is a profound engine for our economic and social systems. We are constantly told that our current state is not successful, attractive, or healthy enough. We are bombarded with messages, both overt and subtle, that we are in a continuous state of deficit.
From that place of deficit, we are motivated to work harder and to spend more. We are driven toward constant striving, toward pouring immense energy into bridging this perceived inadequacy. We become so entrenched in bridging this inadequacy that we distract ourselves from asking ourselves what we truly want to be doing with our lives or from acknowledging and challenging the inadequacies of the system itself.
The path to a higher liberation, at least as far as I can see, is not through affirming that we are enough, but through the categorical rejection of the premise itself.
I am not enough. You are not enough. We are not enough, because there is no enough. There is nothing to prove. There are no hurdles to jump through. There never has been. There never will be.
The whole notion that one’s enoughness is at stake in this life is false and only fosters shame and inadequacy. We all have inherent, unconditional value, and it can neither be increased nor diminished by what we do in this life.
Trying to convince yourself that you are enough just validates a faulty, incoherent question. Instead, consider what you might do with your life if you never had anything to prove in the first place.
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