When "Enough" Is No Where To Be Found
Yesterday I felt a deep sense of frustration. A frustration rooted in the feeling of lack. Of not enough. Of always needing more. Of the job never being done. Of all the energy we put out serving our needs only momentarily before the world asks more of us, always. That somehow sufficiency, satiety and contentment are all entirely fleeting experiences. This notion became a somatic embodiment of stress. A funk I simply couldn’t shake. It left me feeling bitter, unable to be present and with an increasing desire to disconnect somehow, someway. Anyway…
My thoughts raced with suitable options for escaping. A sweet treat, a glass of wine, the dissolution into salty music, or perhaps the unending loophole of self righteous content available to me online. It felt consuming. Yet none of those things pulled me out or really scratched the itch I couldn’t seem to reach. They only seemed to encourage more angst.
You know what did change the experience of my day, and with it my attitude and my heart?…
Getting up and doing my dishes. Cutting up a sweet honeydew melon that had been ripening on the countertop enticing me with her aroma. Going for a walk around the neighborhood. Reading a good book wrapped in the beauty of nature.
It changed me entirely. Slowly and softly, but acutely. And it made me realize that our internal instincts as modern day people have become skewed. We perceive the things that will bring us relief, only to initiate them feeding the very beast we are looking to tame. The desire for more. The lack of what is enough. The feeling of discontentment. And the frustration with the hamster wheel it keeps us on perpetually.
But then we slow down. We take a deep breath. And we begin to let the mundaneness of our lives – the simple, everyday tools available to us – envelope us in a soft, quiet abundance. Not the loud and flashy pictures of plenty that we’ve come to know through highlight reels of lives far away. But the simple knowing that “enough” is all around us.
That contentment lives in the slowness of slicing ripe fruit and eating it’s sweet flesh with your hands. That wholeness resides in the renewal from a cool shower on a hot day. That peace exists when we delight in the landscape before us as it’s kissed by the golden hour in a fleeting glow of time and space, never again to be repeated exactly.
When we slow down and disconnect from the pace the world demands of us, we reconnect to the intrinsic light that was already calm and satiated within us. A reminder of the precious resources we have at our fingertips, always. The opportunity to continuously come back to all that we are made of and our lives already hold so dearly for us. As if for safe keeping until the next time we become present enough to notice them. We draw nearer to our true selves. To the self that exists without the pressures, expectations, and conditioning of what is for us and what we must strive for. We reconnect to the stillness and wholeness we run around seeking each day.
It’s all right here, simply waiting for us to return. Like a good dog at the door when you come home from a long day. They wrap you in unconditional love and make you forget for a moment of all the other things begging for your attention. All the responsibilities tugging at your pant leg, waiting for your response. You now have the space to set your heavy things down by the door, get down on your knees and greet the beautiful things in your present. Remembering where true contentment lives once more. Even if only until the next morning, when you embark out into the world again. This moment leaves an imprint on your heart. A safe space for returning to time and time again. A solace from the demands of busy lives and busy minds. A profound knowing that you already have enough. And they are in the things that cannot be taken from you.
Don’t let the world take these precious things from you. They are ours and ours alone. They make life worth living. If only we can see them fully. A practice, a ritual, that becomes the wholesomeness of our lives. And now is as great a time as any to begin our practice of noticing.
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