Enough is enough

While everyone is doing everything-maxxing, allow me to present to you the idea of "enough"

Do you ever notice how powerful the words we choose are? I have a long love for linguistics; I see language as a living, breathing thing, so I'm a big fan of the end-of-year ritual where you pick a word to guide you through the next chapter. It's a fantastic self-reflection and focus tool. 2022 was Present, 2023 was Savour, 2024 was Trust, last year was Intentional. And this year it's Sovereign.

Sovereign came from an episode of the Witchy Woman Walking podcast (don’t let the name put you off with woo-woo - Cate is such a fantastic storyteller and it’s more about the whole human experience), talking about personal integrity. But while Sovereign hasn’t finished its work here with me, I already know what the rest of they ear and probably the next one will be guided with - “enough”.

I've been going through a lot of personal change over the past couple of years, the kind that touches both how I work and my actual life, and I keep being unsettled by the idea that the whole world right now is driven by maximizing, optimizing, growth, growth, growth, at the expense of our lives, our planet, everything, and "enough" feels like an antidote to that.

The beautiful thing about this word is that it comes in multitudes. Not “enough” as in settling for less or as in lowering the bar because you're tired. It's "enough" because it shifts the focus onto your own life, and gets you back into the driver's seat.

Enough is abundance

You have enough. Your tummy is full, your heart is full, whether your glass is half full or half empty - it has your favourite drink in it. Abundance is a hot word right now, but don’t mistake it for overflow; it’s the right amount for yourself and to share with others.

It’s noticing what you already have, like the proverbial grass. It’s not greener on the other side - it’s greener where you water it. Your grass is enough if you put the effort into it, rather than looking at what your neighbour has, or chasing the best seeds and the best lawnmower, whatever might elevate it to the next level. It’s not about having less; it’s about actually tending your own instead of straining your neck over the fence the whole time.

Enough is acceptance

You are enough. I know that sounds a bit silly written down like that, but it’s true. The economy we live inside doesn’t want you to feel it. Hustle culture doesn’t want you to feel it. If you ever fully believed you were enough, and had done enough, you’d stop consuming and striving and comparing, and a whole lot of very profitable machinery would grind to a halt.

A lot of us are performing our worth all day long without even clocking it, the achievements, the output, the being endlessly useful, as if worth was something you had to keep re-earning every single morning. But there’s a difference between striving and proving. Striving comes from wanting to grow, from genuine curiosity about what you could become. Proving comes from needing to convince someone, often yourself, that you deserve to take up space in the first place. Which you do.

Enough is a measure

I recently sat down and tried to calculate how much it would actually take for our family to live well. Not excessively, just good - a nice house, a car that works, being able to go on holiday now and then, dinner out without stressing about it, nursery for the kid, blablabla. And when I did the maths, it wasn’t nearly as much as I thought it would be.

Honestly, I cannot even fathom what you'd do with the kind of money someone like Elon has - billions, trillions, whatever the number actually is at this point. Yes, a lot of it's tied up in companies, yes he's paying people, I understand the mechanics of it, but I think a lot of people who keep chasing more and more aren't actually happy inside, they don't know themselves, don't know what they actually want, and they're trying to fill a gap that has nothing to do with money at all. A gap that's really about understanding yourself, trusting yourself, loving yourself.

And yes, everyone's enough is different. But there has to be a point where that feeling of satiation kicks in, before it turns into thoughtless gluttony. I don't understand excessive luxury as a lifestyle; the constant chasing of it has to feel so exhausting. There are experiences, like my husband wanting a private after hours tour of the Louvre, which is expensive, but surprisingly not unimaginable, that can look excessive, but they do enrich our life when we have them every so often. It's the constant need for more, more, more, that I don't understand.

Enough is a boundary

In this sense, it’s a decision, not a feeling. It's taking the responsibility for the fact that you get to change what you're willing to accept, starting now, not eventually, not once you've built up the courage, but now.

To some things, we say no more. Hatered, cruelty, inhumanity in all forms. This is “enough” with a hard stop. It’s what we stop tolerating. It works on the personal level too: relationships that are asking too much, jobs that keep taking without giving back, versions of ourselves that outlived their natural expiration dates. At some point you get to say, I've had enough of this, and actually mean it.

Enough is a permission

Good enough is what actually lets you finish, instead of endlessly refining something into oblivion until it stops meaning anything. Done is better than perfect, not because perfect doesn’t matter, but because perfect is usually just fear wearing a nicer outfit.

It doesn’t mean that you stop improving (yourself, your work, your creations), but you allow the process to guide you rather than succumbing to perfectionism. This is what startups learned to do well - ship small versions of whatever they are working on to test and see if they are going in the right direction. Minimum Viable Product is minimum for a reason, meaning it’s good enough to get the idea across and receive feedback.

Enough doesn’t mean less - it means right for me

I don’t think it’s an accident that “enough” feels so unfamiliar. We live in a world built entirely around more, and nowhere in that world are we actually invited to stop and check in with ourselves, to ask, is this enough? Is this for me?

Practising “enough” isn’t a productivity hack, or a wellness trend. It’s a refusal. Small, personal, but a refusal all the same. Every time you choose enough over more, you’re stepping outside a system that needs you to feel perpetually short of something.

And I think the shift that “enough” asks for is bigger than just personal; I think it’s societal. Because once we shift from trying to get everything, all the time, to asking what we actually already have, and what we actually need, everything changes. The priorities. The values. How we treat each other. How we treat the planet. If people actually believed they were enough, that they had enough, what would that even do to how we consume, how we compete, how we live? But that’s a whole other conversation, for another time.

That’s enough for now.