Enough Is Enough?

"Enough is enough" is an expression known more for its "I am outta here" reference than anything else. But the truth is, it is a part of an important question that many people do not ask themselves...uh...enough. When is enough enough?

When I got my first professional job at the age of 23 I was given $16,000 a year. At the time, I told my mother that this meant I was finally being paid enough to never have to worry about money ever again. Yep, I actually said that. And I believed it. She chuckled and told me in the most gentle, but knowing tone, "Honey, it's never going to be enough".

"What an idiot," I thought.
Innocence is bliss.

Now that I have lost my innocence, I am left with the question, "What is enough?"

As a professional, I am poignantly asked by wives who have less than ideal marriages, "Am I stupid for staying with this man?" I am asked the same question by men, but not as often for a variety of reasons. And my statement to them is always the "golden question" in my mind: "Well, you have to ask yourself, 'what is enough?'" This is an important question, and interestingly, the answer changes through our life phases. In the our early phases we all expected to be millionaires, or marry one, and stay beautiful for the rest of our lives. We all expected to be celebrities in our communities and respected by all. We were all going to marry the most beautiful wife or husband---with a full head of hair and the perfect body, get the perfect job, gain much professional acclaim, and don't forget the perfect, loving, and beautiful children...and live happily ever after.

Not.

Then, hopefully, we all had to ask ourselves an important question: "What is enough?" For those of you younger than thirty-nine, relax, the crushing blow of that question is not relevant to you. I ask the troubled wives/husbands I see, "What if what you believed was your God-given right in the past is no longer necessary?" Things like: my right to a husband/wife with a perfect body, or my right to be or marry a millionaire, or the perfect job, or my right to perfect and never ending sex, or wonderfully behaved, hard working children, or maybe even my simple right to an affectionate, demonstrably loving partner. What if, grand as those wishes were in the past, I've truly found in my seemingly imperfect life---enough?

I think when we were young and had these images of what we wanted out of life, we had no reason not to expect them to come true. Why shouldn't they come true, that is what we wanted after all. It is only later that many of us find that many of those images we had of our future might not pan out at all or they just change over time. They change because of the unexpected events in our lives. They change because others didn't act like we expected, and they change because life deals us some unexpected cards. Sometimes the images changed because we actually attained and lived them and they were not as great as we thought they would be. Sometimes they change because we unexpectedly found something better, something we never even thought would be life changing in the first place, like children.

So what if, after a period of time (usually after thirty-five or so), we look around at what we have in our lives, our family, our partners/spouses, our children, our jobs and say "maybe this is enough." What if this seemingly imperfect life is all I need...it's not actually settling for too little...maybe somewhat less that I originally wanted or envisioned, but finding that what I do have right now is truly enough for who I have become in life.

There is a quote from the movie, "Still Bill". It tells the story of Bill Withers who took himself out of "the game" right as he became world famous for his songs like "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine." He said, "It's okay to head out for Wonderful, but on your way to Wonderful you're going to have to pass through all right. And when you get to all right, take a look around and get used to it 'cause that may be as far as you are going to go."

Sometimes all right is enough.