I see you. Yes, I realize you are there.
You can feel overlooked. Invisible. Like you have so little to offer.
You see, in order to be seen, we feel like we have to be: be somebody bigger, better, more successful.
(In order to just land a job you love, it seems like you have to be the next Steve Jobs.) The pressure is incredible, incredibly crippling.
It can cripple the healthy way you view yourself.
It makes you think who you are is not enough because you -- just being you -- don't have the titles, salary, house, boat, spouse and picket fence.
It can cripple the healthy way you view your work.
Whatever you do is automatically "not good enough" because your ideas aren't spawning the next Apple or Google, your mundane desk work isn't meriting you an interview on "The Today Show," and your weekend plans aren't with anybody close to celebs.
It can cripple the healthy way you view your life.
Whatever talents you do have, whatever job you actually possess, whatever people you regularly communicate with -- it all becomes just not enough.
You're not enough. You don't do enough (or do it correctly enough). Your life is not big enough.
I've felt the deep emptiness making you feel hollow. I've felt the unfillable-ness; whatever could be "good" or "enough" seems to slip through your hollow existence.
I've seen how answers people give of why your life is enough, you are enough, you do enough don't completely satisfy.
I've seen the frustration and confusion that paints your reality in hopelessness.
But I've had enough, enough of not being enough, not doing enough, not having enough.
I've seen it's my choice.
I can keep letting the incredible, incredibly painful pressure compress my soul, confuse my desires, blur my vision, and tie up my steps. I can focus on how I'm not good enough and this life just isn't big enough.
But one choice comes at the cost of another, and when I'm holding onto how it's not enough, I can't hold onto anything else that maybe (maybe) could help it be enough.
Because who defines what "enough" is in the first place? What actually is big enough for me to be happy and not feel such pressure to do, be, live, accomplish?
Am I going to let somebody else decide what is enough for my life? Somebody who I can't even point to? Somebodies who are providing me with these ideas I'm construing into a life I should (actually) be living?
Enough.
(Oh, I've had enough). Because maybe I simply need to let go and decide what is enough for me.
It's enough to realize it's never enough.
Even if I was the CEO of a successful startup who's living the high life in Silicon Valley, I know it still wouldn't ever be enough for me. Because someone else is the CEO of a bigger corporation. Someone else created an innovation even more innovative than mine.
It's enough to be enough.
It's enough to realize that I might hold my flaws always in front of me, but I can be enough for someone else; I can be enough hope for someone through our conversations. I can be enough encouragement for someone through our sharing ideas. I can be enough support for someone through just being a friend.
It's enough to choose happiness enough.
It's enough for me to realize that someone will always have more, be more, do more. I can always live hollow, perpetually enough-less. Or I can choose to be thankful and look at my life with a new perspective, choosing to see what I have, what I am, what life I'm living as "enough" (even while I try to keep pressing forward). I can choose to be happy and decide to celebrate each day, each small accomplishment, each enough.
Because I've had enough of living my life like it's never enough. Because the problem actually isn't my life. It's how I view my life and what I choose to do from there.
"Never enough-ers," let me tell you from the other side: it can be enough.
