Wondering Soul Yoga

When is your ______ enough?

When is any of it enough?

I live in a mid-sized American city (Columbus), where folks talk all the time about: “well, when I move to [INSERT OTHER CITY HERE] …” I’m talking sexier cities like Denver, Seattle, Austin, New York, LA, or San Francisco.

Columbus hovers around 1 million inhabitants, making it the 14th largest US city. But it still lacks the romantic appeal of these coastal megacities. Columbus residents still give into the ‘butt-of-every joke’ shame that hovers around living in or being from the Midwest to this day. (Looking at you, literally every comedian, who says they’re ‘an LA 5’ but ‘an Ohio 10’). 

Ironically, in my 20s, I would constantly say I was ‘going to move’ or would remind people that I had lived somewhere else more exciting (Paris, New York, India, Morocco). As Ohio politics became increasingly conservative and the longer I lived away from home, I didn’t recognize myself in the people here.

They say that which bothers you the most about others is what bothers you the most about yourself. At the end of the day, Ohio never felt good enough as a city to me because I never felt like I was enough.

‘Enoughness’ is so personal and intangible. To feel ‘enough’ is to feel whole and complete exactly as you are. This feeling only comes from within. Externalities – like moving to a new city, going on a trip, dating someone new, buying that new dress – are temporary, band-aid fixes to feeling at ease, complete as you are with the things you have. 

You have enough when you feel like you’re enough.

So what?

Let’s say you save up and finally buy that Brand Name Bag you’re obsessed with. There’s this rush of joy, exhilaration, excitement. And then, … after a while … the bag isn’t giving you as much joy. A friend buys a different bag that you absolutely love… that you love more than your Brand Name Bag. Off you go again, craving this new-new shiny thing to have, to possess to – for however brief a moment – feel complete, to feel whole.

In 1930 the famed economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by 2030, people might be working just 15 hours a week. He underestimated the human desire to compete just as he underestimated the human desire to buy and buy and buy things. Theoretically, the more we work, the more we earn. The more we earn, the more we can buy. The extra money we have from all this work isn’t making any of us happier. Somehow it’s never enough money; it’s never enough stuff.

Enough for love?

Yesterday my French tutor and I were discussing the concept of ‘enough’ in the context of online, modern dating. When the apps are an endless scroll created to draw and keep you scrolling, choice feels unlimited and the prospect of sticking with one person can be simply unappealing.

How do we know our partner is enough? Enough to date, enough to spend a lifetime with. Enough. How can we judge someone else to be “enough” if we don’t give ourselves the same grace? 

This constant grasping for more – more stuff, more clothes, more money, more external validation, more partners – never ends unless we do something about it. Unless we sit and acquaint ourselves with all the ways in which we are enough, in which we have enough, in this exact moment. Acquaint and re-acquaint. Again and again.

P.S. French women have it figured out. Feeling ‘enough’ is the secret to French women’s confidence. 

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