How do we do this ‘I am enough’ stuff which flies across our Facebook and Twitter feeds? What does it mean? Sounds good, doesn’t it? To be enough? To not be found wanting all the time? To chase those sibling monsters ‘NE’ (not enough) and ‘NGE’ (Not Good Enough) out of the room?
But to ‘be enough’ surely suggests we don’t have to bother, or keep trying at anything? To do what it takes to achieve mastery? And I want to - don’t you? To feel that sense of purpose and success. At something, anything.... Making cakes, managing a family’s frantic timetable, getting that doctorate, playing the piano, or chess, knowing how to update your website, to paint, or groom cats.... But, contrary to our hidden beliefs, there is no one dream better than another for giving a human being a sense of achievement - it’s just that society tells you there is an importance hierarchy: ignore it - each of us has something we want to do well. So, where does ‘I am enough’ fit into all the above? Into life itself?
For far too long, being enough has been to do with ‘doing enough’ (i.e, more. Oh, and more. Then more...) and ‘doing it better than everyone else’. But being enough is just that - being enough. And there’s one simple way of putting this: if you’re here on planet earth, alive and kicking, you are enough. YOU are enough, because there can only ever be one you, one me. So there is no one for you to be held against as comparison. Unless you are Dolly the cloned sheep, you are it in the enough department. As I am enough. I am enough Annie. You are enough ..................... (insert your name here.). How can you be more than you are? You can do more, learn more, get more - gain more certificates, if certificates are your thing, or a faster car, if cars are your thing, play longer piano pieces, if longer pieces fire your rocket, paint bigger canvasses if big canvasses float your boat, but you need not, and plain cannot, become more than you already are.
But what if you feel utterly useless? The worst creature ever to arrive on a planet - any planet? A total failure? Then to be told you can’t become more than you are is kinda harsh, and also very worrying! What to do? Where can you grow into? How can you change the feelings inside of not good enough if right in there is all there is ever going to be of you? .......
This is how - by coming to terms with the fact that you are enough where you are right now. Not deciding to believe it, but coming to terms with what actually is: enough is in the being ...................... (again, your name). A being, as you, who does contain extraordinary potential to achieve mastery in things of your choice, but a being who knows it is not what you experience which makes you you, but that you are you, and quite enough as you, way before you begin any experiencing. An enough you experiencing any number of things to any level of expertise you want - bearing in mind ‘expertise’ is subjective; to one it is medals, to another it is pure enjoyment, to some it is both. And each desire is as equal as the other. Each is quite satisfactory and the experiencing of all things will do nicely; each is your experience, not another’s expectation.
When a friend sees you across the street and calls out and waves, they are not waving as they think, ‘Oh my, look at .............(you). So lacking. So not enough. So wanting’, any more that you think the same of her when you wave back. (Are you?) You might think her coat isn’t the one you would choose, but does that make you think she is less than enough? No, she’s enough-in-a-weird-coat. The only person who thinks you are not enough is you. (If anyone else truly does, sack them from your life immediately; they don’t get life at all.) Your not-enough-ness has crept in the back door because all the messages of family, school, college, employment, and mostly the media suggest you should be somewhere other than where you are right now, and someone other that who you are. You know the sort of thing: wear this, weigh that, look like this, achieve that.... Ya da ya da ya da ya-awn... Boring! Yet, advertising companies don’t pay and charge a squillion dollars per second for nothing; they pay for the skill to hook you in in a nanosecond, even when you’re not listening. And they are frighteningly successful, unless we poke our tongues out at them whilst saying, very firmly, 'Not listening! Not watching! It’s all a game of lies!'
You are you. When someone hears your name they imagine you, not the person who lives next door to you. You. And if they see you with judgement, it’s their judgement, a mere subconscious habit because we live in a world which functions on judgements. (Note the popularity of shows like X Factor with all the suspense-music judging-moments. Where everyone thinks they know a ‘star’, and yet their ‘star’ isn’t the same as that of the person next door.) So, the only thought on seeing yourself in the mirror needs to be, 'Wow. That’s me. ME! A me I can call my very own!' You’re a human being who is like a snowflake - all snowflakes are snowflakes, but each is unique. And whilst we might all express a preference for this pattern over that pattern (and isn’t that great; how dull if we all liked the same things!) preferring a certain snowflake doesn’t mean the one next to it is not enough? I’ve not met anyone who judges snowflakes as harshly as they judge people, so snowflakes have much to teach us.
Thank God you sound different to anyone else. Thank God you look different to everyone else. Thank God you do different things, or the same things differently. Without that you would completely disappear - the very thing of which we are deep-down most afraid. Becoming white noise within white noise, beige on beige, you wouldn’t show up at all and the world would pass you by completely. Yet the already enough you tries to disappear in your not-enough-ed-ness, in your ‘I am failing to be the someone else who I deem is more enough then me’.
It’s your very differences which make you ‘enough’. I’m enough. You’re enough. We’re here, solid, heavy-enough-not-to-fly-off-the-earth beings. When we bump into someone, we feel the bump of enoughness meeting enoughness. If you were a shadow, full of holes, nothing but see-through-mist, maybe you would need ‘inking in’.... But you’re not. You are Here. Present. You arrvied. You have a birth-day. You are enough. And thank you for being you.
