I have a great challenge for you today. A great challenge for myself. One I have been challenging myself with for years, with some progress, perhaps even great progress, but a challenge that will most likely need to revisit for the rest of my life on a regular basis.
How much is enough? Ask most people and they immediately think you are talking about money, and I guess that as good a place to start. If you ask people how much is enough money, most people give an answer that translates to some version of “a little bit more.” I have met very few people who say, I have more than enough, and I have never met anyone who said, “I have just the right amount.”
But the How much is enough? Question has implications in all areas of our lives way beyond money. How much is enough accomplishment? How much is enough leisure? Work? Pleasure? Exercise? Food? Friendship? There are hundreds of ways the question applies to our lives and there is an important lesson for us all to learn.
The question itself can be misleading. In many ways it is an invitation to yearn for more, but I like to invite you to start seeing it as an invitation to be content with less.
Content and enough are two words that don’t get much play in today’s culture. People want more of everything and perhaps that’s why we are so discontented as a society.
Not only do the words content and enough not get much play in today’s culture, I almost never hear them articulated as goals. But I believe they are profoundly wroth striving for.
So, today, this week, this month, I encourage you to start reflecting on these words, contemplating them – enough and content. Invite them in to your life and I promise you, you will wish you did many years ago.
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