The Concept of Enough (or Enough, Already)

So much of the world's economic vitality involves armies of paid interrogators and interruptors working non-stop to ensure that you cannot avoid their attempts to get in front of your face or into your ears.  They all have the same message: you don't have enough; you need more; until you pay to obtain more of what we are selling (be it a product or service, a tangible or an intangible) or meet and exceed the targets of what you are paid to sell, we will do everything in our power (and our power is considerable) to make you feel physically uncomfortable, anxious, irritated, and worthless.  And if it all falls apart for you because of over-consumption or lack of forethought in whatever amount or kind, hey, it's not our fault; we're just presenting options, motivating you to always hunger for more, to not be Satisfied with Enough.  Just because we present the option doesn't mean we're responsible when you fumble away our promised outcomes.  After all, you'll never be the one who's Too Big To Fail.  (Unless the strain makes you fat and overweight, in which you are deemed to have failed.)

I had already meant to write about this today, as I fell out with the American cult of the linear path to Not Enough so long ago, and it takes a herculean effort for me to understand people who seem to have spent much of their lives being rewarded for linear progress, talking about things like home renovations, babies, and new furniture.  That cult seems to be the unspoken hovering force in this article about a person whom I've read before, who has previously been praised for "candor" in the midst of crisis.  There's no risk in praising the successful after the fact, unless the success is fleeting and demoted to a flash in the pan, or if the success is undesirable to a moneyed target audience, or if it raises expectations to an unsustainable level (thus begetting sentences that start with "It was inevitable that...."  All of the real reward in finance that I've ever seen is given to those for whom the idea of Not Enough is the driving force.  It'll be the force behind countless scams masquerading as options that will be before me in the future.  "Endless Opportunity."  "Potential for Significant Growth and Advancement."  "Aggressive, Hungry Go-Getter Wanted."  Fuck.  It never ends.

Even in personal realms, Not Enough rears its ugly head: I may be lucky enough to be in love with the greatest woman in the world, but that still doesn't prevent me from feeling that I should lose more weight or work harder for more money so as to provide more thing-based comforts than I'm able to.  It took a long time for me to realize that Jen likes nice things as much as anyone, but that the life we have really is perfect in so many ways - the simple, cozy, cluttered apartment with humble furniture is okay, the lack of a busy social life is okay, the relaxing with on-demand cable goes way beyond okay to desirable, as do the two cats relaxing and stampeding about.  I'm grateful for being able to recognize that perfection on a near-daily basis, which chips away at the biggest fear I ever learned growing up - the fear of being broke and alone, so that even in the midst of prosperity, in the back of my mind I should be worriedly preparing for my future so that I don't end up "that" way, at the wrong end of the scale that has Not Enough, Enough, Success, and Excess burning rubber like hot rods far off in the other direction, sometimes displacing one another on the continuum depending on who's doing the measuring, or the selling.

The reality is that there really is a finite amount of stuff to go around, in a macro sense - hence the constant push and pull of politics and governance, fighting over the forms of capital that are necessary for entities to survive and flourish.  It's alright to want more, but knowing when to stop, to moderate on one's own terms to Enough, is the greatest thing I've ever learned.  As Flea (of all people) once said, "I'll take all the money I can get, and I won't feel guilty about it at all," but at least I'll know that I'll have all the money I need once all of my personal debt has been extinguished and I no longer owe a dime to any entity, anywhere.  My MBA will "tell" some people what my values supposedly are, but it's not my job to convince such people - yet (if it ever will be).

Personal debt of zero dollars will be an Enough that I haven't known for many, many years, and once I get there it will be cause for real celebration.  I'll celebrate in Toronto, I believe, where I'd like for us to be able to stay for awhile.  But something tells me that I'll be well into the vaunted range of Success the second that Jen and I drive over the Bluewater Bridge in Port Huron onto the 402, officially crossing over into a new life, a new way of seeing.