On becoming enough

me and my word of the year

When I look around my house, my initial thought is often “too much” or “too many.”

Too much noise, too many items on the to-do list. Too many meals to cook, too many picky eaters, too much wasted food. Too much clutter, too many crumbs on the floor. Too much laundry to catch-up on, too many mismatched socks, too many pairs of shoes in the entryway. Too many unfinished projects. Too many ideas. Too much, too much, too much.

And a funny thing happens—anytime “too much” runs through my mind, the phrase “not enough” quickly follows. Not enough time, not enough energy, not enough money, not enough help, not enough discipline, not enough me.

Sometimes, when I choose my word of the year, I don’t always know exactly why. But when I landed on “enough” as my word for 2023, it was largely because I was tired of the “not enough” playing on repeat in my mind. It was wearing me down. I began in January and February by trying to replace this broken “not enough” messaging with a new mantra: “I have enough, I do enough, I am enough.”

Now that we’re marking the turn to the end of the year, my inner monologue is shifting. If the beginning of 2023 was about turning the “not enough” into sufficiency, then my current work is turning the “too much” into “just right.”

In the One Little Word workshop¹, our October prompt was to take photos of the good in our lives. I listened to Azzari (one of the course contributors) explain the prompt while I piddled in the kitchen. I stopped to look around, wondering what goodness I might find to photograph then and there. What I noticed was the piles.

Lunchboxes. Dishes, dirty in the sink and clean in the drying rack. Laundry, waiting to be folded. Laundry, waiting for its turn in the washer. Legos, dog toys, picture books. Suddenly, my eyes were open to see that all the things I identified as “too much” were also the good.

It’s a small step from resenting the stuff to resenting the people to whom it belongs—including myself. And I hate that. There is, of course, room for decluttering and less consumption, which I am always working on. But I’m talking about something different here—a curiosity about whether I can really, truly learn to look past the stuff and look past the tasks to instead see the life-giving activity, love, and creativity that is always thrumming between and among the five us of who call this place home.

In her most recent Enneagram book, Suzanne Stabile writes that understanding the Enneagram helps us see past an individual’s personality and instead, see their essence. Who are they at their core? What do they care most about? What are they motivated by? What are their deepest hopes? As I mulled over these ideas, I also found myself thinking about my home. It’s personality is certainly a bit chaotic—usually loud, often cluttered, and very, very full. But its essence? I think (and hope! but really think!) its essence is cozy, playful, and full of creativity. (And still loud.)

This may be the best thing 2023 has taught me so far. A sense of contentment is not only about turning scarcity into sufficiency or learning to ignore the cultural call for “more, more more.” Contentment also requires changing how I view the sometimes overwhelming much and many of my life—not as my enemy, but my very own pile of enough.²

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.” — Rainbow Rowell

1. One Little Word is an annual workshop led by scrapbooker and memory keeper, Ali Edwards. Ali is the person from whom I first learned about the idea of a word of the year, way back in 2010. I’ve been keeping a word ever sense, and I’ve done this workshop several times. I highly recommend it, especially if you are someone who enjoys memory-keeping or crafting. (If not, you might have to work harder to filter out the ideas/prompts/concepts that don’t apply to you. But there’s a wealth of wisdom in this class every year.) Enrollment for the next year usually opens in November.

2. While this may seem obvious, I want to throw out there that to do this well requires a commitment to self-awareness, because we can never, ever say “yes” to everything that tries to weasel its way into our lives.