Feeling "enough"
When there's so much to get done, how can you ever feel like what you're doing is enough?
Short walks in the woods aren’t the Appalachian Trail, but they sure do fit the bill these days.
Our house these days simply will never be "clean".
No matter how much we do, no matter how often I push through the fatigue and try to clean, everything is still everywhere.
The thing is, before kids, I think our house was still dirty. But now, there's even more of a pressure to do enough around the house to pay my fair share of the responsibilities that come along with having a kid.
That pressure of feeling like I'm doing a good enough job, doing enough work, and simply being enough, hasn't just been around during parenting, but I'll be damned if a little baby hasn't really brought that feeling to the surface and blown it up.
Here's the thing:
In life, we constantly have a running to-do list that seems to only ever get longer with each task we complete. That makes no sense at all, but tell me you don't completely agree.
I'm a big fan of comparing life nowadays to life when humans were just starting to get their foot in the door of being successful competitors on the planet, so bear with me.
We used to have three things on our to do list.
Eat. Sleep. Stay alive.
Maybe there was that one caveman going above and beyond for his family by dusting the cave paintings, so for him, we can make an exception and say that he was that superhuman that is maybe at fault for all our idiotic stressors nowadays.
Fuck that guy.
Today, our lists are endless. And when you tear the lists apart, I don't believe for a second that most of the things on there can be traced back to our simple survival. But now, our brains have been shaped by the society we live in and believe that we have to complete that list, or die trying.
Our stress response system has been totally taken and put out of whack by the modern stressors that provide a low hum of worry and fear that used to only be triggered when we were literally trying to be eaten by a lion.
Basically, we're going around the house worrying about how we're about to run out of oat milk and since that's definitely not the only thing on our worry list, our brains are often operating at the same level as if we were worried about walking around the corner into the bathroom and that same lion being there waiting for us.
How fucked up is that?
And our everyday stress is literally killing us.
Because we don't feel like we're doing enough or being enough, we're stripping years off our lifespan.
For me, that's enough of a reason to do anything and everything to start chilling my brain the fuck out.
But that's way easier said than done, right?
I don't think we'll ever truly feel like enough in our current definition of what it means to be enough. Because right now, the world is asking everyone to be a full-time employee at a job they probably aren't stoked on, spend five hours on self-improvement each day, be present and available for their children at 3 in the morning, remember that they're also married and in love, and at some point they should probably get the laundry done.
It's just a lot.
It's also totally unrealistic to believe that we'll always be able to get it all done.
What we need to do is adjust our mindsets to become okay with not getting it all done. We need to forgive ourselves more frequently and get our priorities set straight. Only then can you make a real plan that will push you forward into a space that you'll ever feel like you're enough.
"Enough" means different things for everyone.
What determines that is each one of our own values systems. When we're taking care of the things that align with our top values, we can feel like we're doing enough. When we're prioritizing things that aren't super high on our values lists, then we're out of whack and we'll never feel like we've nailed it down.
It's stupidly simple and it totally makes sense when you think about it.
If you take care of the things you care for, you'll feel like you've done enough.
There are a lot of arguments against this because so many people don't actually care about their job or doing the laundry. Laundry certainly doesn't land high on my list of values either. But what does, is caring for those around me. What does is the pursuit of purpose. Financial security might be on others' lists (I'm never sure what that really means to me so it can't be high on there).
Values are embedded in the daily actions that we take on. So while they may not be clear, we can identify where they're being pushed on and where they're being pushed out.
Figuring out how to align with your values is the quickest way to finally feeling like you're actually enough.
So stop reading and get to work.
