Enough

I watch my husband plan for a holiday feast this month. Being a former chef, you can be sure it’s all laid out; that everything he needs is there, all the food pre-prepped, nothing but super-fresh and safe ingredients. That’s enough for him. Then when it’s time, he goes into action, totally immersed in the dance of making a good and memorable meal.

While he’s doing that, I’m making drapes for our house – in between seeing clients. Not satisfied with doing simply an OK job with OK materials, I exhaustively search for just the right fabric and colours, then curtain hardware, then decide on exactly how I’ll make them. I’ve been known to rip every stitch out and begin again if there’s a single flaw. One of my mother’s favorite stories was how I dumped the lemon curd for a lemon meringue pie and began again because I discovered a few lumps.

I’m better now, and really wouldn’t waste all that work and tastiness over a few lumps, but for many years, I felt deep down that I could never take enough effort to make something just right.

If you’re a busy person like me, then never being satisfied with your work could make you a candidate for burnout.

It can be crazy-making, that need for perfection, wanting badly to make sure everyone’s experience will be wonderful, and that you will receive another ‘pass’ from those people. Oddly, even if those people you’re trying to impress are people you don’t even know or maybe even like that much.

The secret of knowing when what you are doing or striving for is enough: knowing that you are enough.

Quote of the Week

“Greed is a little bit more than enough.”
― Toba Beta

 

How much is enough?