What is “enough”?

I was in a conversation that I expected to have all of the bursting energy of possibility. It’s January, which brings new-year-goals-and-plans energy. The topic of conversation was (supposed to be) about what new things we were starting this year - or, perhaps, what old things we were letting go of. The people in the room were relatively new to one another - none of the well-worn grooves of a conversation that’s happened a hundred times between the same two people. The gathering was low-stakes - or, as low-stakes as meeting new people can be, really. I wanted to have a conversation about dreams, about embarking on courageous endeavors, about hope and abundance and the wonder of creating what we wanted to exist in the world.

“I’d like to create a membership program,” started one of the folks in the conversation. Which was great! Yes! All the wanting! For a split second, my heart was full and I was delightfully curious about this membership program, until the sentence finished with “but I don’t have enough people.”

I felt myself deflate, like the air in the room had just gotten heavier. Like the conversation about possibility and abundance and hope and new adventures had suddenly been replaced with a conversation about logistics, practicality, barriers, challenges, scarcity, and fear. Like suddenly, I was back in the land of having to carefully justify every decision. It felt like we were putting together a case to present to some approval committee, about whether to do a thing. And it definitely felt like “I want to” wasn’t expected to be a persuasive argument to that committee.

Look, I’m not saying that practicalities don’t exist. They absolutely do, and figuring out the logistics matters. But in that moment today, it struck me that it’s so easy for the practicalities to come first, and the wanting to sort of get swept to the side as an irrelevant detail.

It got me thinking (as so many things do). When do I have enough that what I want is allowed to matter? Where’s the bar, where I want suddenly gets to enter into the conversation? And why is the question “Do I have enough to do what I want?” instead of “I want this. How much of it can I accomplish with what I have?” What would be different if, instead, the question was “What would it mean to me and how would I move forward if what I have really was enough to take real, meaningful steps toward what I want?”

As with all the best questions, I don’t have the answers. I don’t even know whether shifting the questions is more likely to shift thinking about how to get the thing, or about what I actually truly want enough to work for it.

But I do know that surrounding myself with beliefs and discussion of not enough is a quick path toward finding myself without enough.

Without enough energy.

Without enough ideas.

Without enough hope.

Without enough curiosity.

Without enough wonder.

Without enough confidence.

Without enough flexibility.

Without enough trust.

Without enough desire.

I hope that you can find enough for the things that are really important to you.

I hope this, for your sake, for your own thriving.

I hope this, for your loved ones, and for the enoughness of your shared relationships.

And, maybe most of all, I hope this for the world as a whole. Because not enough seems to draw people toward unloving behavior, in so many ways and at so many different levels.

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P.S. Um, oops. The Official Voices of How I’m Supposed To Sell Things say that I’m not supposed to encourage a sense of enough.

Stay tuned next week, I guess, for a post about how coaching is still totally worthwhile in a universe of “Enough”.