The BOLD (Enough)
This month, we’re going to explore the sixth principle of the Prospects of Possibility framework: Evict Insufficiency.
Right now, it is tempting to focus on all the things that are insufficient because we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis. A few months ago, it was tempting to focus on insufficiency because of the contrast between what we had and what we wanted as we looked at the apparent abundance in other people’s life.
Insufficiency is a trap all the time.
Abundance is, likewise, always a possibility.
It really depends on where you place your focus.
How can we place two seemingly different concepts—there is enough and there could be more—on the fulcrum of abundance in order to feel content and inspired at the same time? That is a balancing act worth practicing
The Whisper (Is Enough)
My grandmother believed that if you praise children, they will stop trying to be better. Her philosophy seems to be rooted in the deepest sense of scarcity. She appears to have believed that humans cannot be inspired when they are content. If we become comfortable, we will stop trying to achieve.
This philosophy seems to underpin many of our favorite sayings. No pain no gain. There is no success in the comfort zone. The idea seems to be that we are only motivated to move forward when we are in great pain.
Discomfort and lack can drive us. Necessity is the mother of invention. And pain and discomfort can be necessary as we move from what we know into the necessary unknown of new endeavors.
However, there is a far more nuanced state of inspiration that gets a lot less notice. It is possible to be happy and productive. Herman Melville did not write his masterpiece, Moby Dick, on the rolling decks or in the cramped cabin of the ships on which he sailed. He wrote that book in the cozy library of his beautiful home, Arrowhead. His view was of the Berkshire mountains, not mountains of waves.
A Startling Idea-Enough
What if we can be content and inspired at the same time? I think it is necessary to find the balancing point between what we already have and what can be in order to let our joy propel us rather than our fears chase us.
It all starts with a healthy relationship with the concept of enough. My own relationship with enough has been a bit..rocky. I few years ago, I realized that I had attached the word to the wrong definition. I saw “enough” as the mark of a compromise, a that-will-do-but-I-really-wanted-more experience. Enough was enough but it wasn’t everything—and why wouldn’t you want everything? At least, that’s how I understood it.
Enough is, however, the moment in which there is exactly the required amount or number of something to serve a purpose. What a delightful moment. No need to seek more. No need to wait. There is enough to proceed.
Enough is the moment when the cup you dipped into the fresh, bubbling water is filled to the correct depth to slake you thirst. Enough is the moment when the plane reaches the correct speed to achieve lift and take off. Enough is the day the bank account shows enough funds to make the investment.
Enough to Start
Because of that, we can stop worrying about whether we are enough. We are. You are enough because you have what it takes to move forward, to start something new, to build on all your current gifts and talents and resources (no matter how meager you currently think them to be) and go build something more.
Picture an old-fashioned scale, the kind that blind justice is usually depicted holding, with two pans set at the ends of a bar. On the nearest side is the enough bucket. In enough are all the elements required to start something. Think of it as matches to light a fire, ingredients to make a cake, parts to build an engine. There is enough resources, knowledge, skills, allies, elements to start something.
On the other side of the bar is inspiration bucket. In it you will find the dreams for the outcomes that could be. Here, you can picture career advancement, better relationships, greater wealth, and brilliant solutions.
At the pivot point that balances those two buckets is the fulcrum of abundance. The enough bucket doesn’t have all the elements that will be required in the inspiration bucket. And the inspiration bucket can’t ignite itself. It is the abundance of what will come—new resources, powerful allies, deep lessons from overcoming obstacles—that balances enough with inspiration. It is a belief in and focus on abundance that propels us from where we are to where we want to be.
Ready, Set, Go
What it takes to start is having just enough. (By the way, perhaps it is the use of the word “just” that had reinforced my incorrect belief that enough was somehow a place of lack. Think about how liberating “just” really is, though. It is the instant when something can start and it doesn’t take everything—just enough.)
What do you have right now? Do you have flour, sugar and eggs? Start working towards a cake and you’ll figure out how to acquire the other ingredients and find a bakery teacher. Of what do you have just enough to start right now?
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