You Are Enough: Re-Engaging When You Feel Like You’re Falling Behind

Right here, right now, you are enough. You are enough if you are training for a marathon or nursing a child or screaming at one. You are enough if you are daydreaming or outlining your memoir or delivering a corporate presentation. You are enough if you are having a lazy morning, afternoon, evening, or an incredibly productive one. You are enough if you are plotting or scheming, simply maintaining, creating or destroying, sleeping or waking. You are enough no matter who you are or what you are doing. You are simply enough.
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We are living at an extremely interesting time in human history. Technological advances make it easier to connect with other people than ever before, but most of us feel disconnected. We have more opportunities for growth -personal growth, spiritual growth, educational growth, relationship growth- than we have ever had before, and yet we feel stunted. Our calendars are overflowing with activity and our Facebooks flourish with friends. We are well-educated, determined, ambitious, informed and engaged.

Oh, wait. No we’re not. Not that last one. We are largely disengaged. And this disengagement is incredibly disheartening. We feel it: we’re out of touch, out of sorts, out of time, we worry, and we worry. We worry constantly, incipiently. We dress our cares in anxiety and clothe our concerns in dread and fear. We don’t have to. We can just be. That’s enough.

It’s enough to simply exist. It’s enough to breathe in this moment and allow our lungs to expand, our bodies to relax, our senses to activate. It’s enough to be where our feet are, to melt into this moment, whether this moment is road rage or cubicle boredom or walking the dog or feeding the fish or greeting a dear friend, a spouse, a child. We can simply exist for the suchness of this experience. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect. None of us are. None of us ever will be. You’re still enough.

That we’re constantly coaxed by thirty-point lists and practical applications for planning every moment of our lives perfectly is an absurd waste of time. That we’re regularly scolded for not doing well enough, not upholding whatever enough, not being enough, is absolute falsehood. You are always enough. When we realize this, when we embrace the existence of this very moment -because this, now, is all we really have- we learn to treasure our existence, to value ourselves. We don’t have to be great thinkers or doers, achievers of huge importance, worth an assigned number of dollars and cents. In being, in existing here, now, you and I, and all of us, we are priceless.

When we realize this, when we account for our existence, our “enough-ness”, we re-engage. We come back to the world. We smile again. We can accept without attachment and connect without clinging. We can simply be.

It can be really hard to simply be, though, so here are a few resources. Guides, if you will. This one hilariously describes the basics of being a human. (Extraterrestrials, take note.) This one talks about the importance of self-worth especially in the context of relationships. This one is a cool clearinghouse of a number of thinkers’ ideas on being human. And this one discusses how we really see ourselves, and each other. You may find them helpful, in seeking out your enough-ness.

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