There’s a common thread that runs through the disappointment that comes with low sales or publisher and agent rejections. When you submit a proposal for a conference and it doesn’t get accepted or when you submit a resume for a job and you don’t get hired, this same insidious phrase often runs through your mind.
Not Enough.
It doesn’t matter if you think that you didn’t “do” enough or “were” enough, either way there’s a feeling like something was missing, that a part of what you were offering was missing, and it was because of this missing part that you failed to meet your goals.
Except, that’s not quite right.
The idea of “not enough” is a trap of capitalism. It comes from a place of perpetual, exponential growth. If we think about the natural world, whether that’s in the giant redwood trees or algae spreading across the surface of a pond, that growth is measured. In animals, growth happens because of a balance of nutrients taken in with the body structure and movement/expenditure of calories. That’s why there is a breed of chickens whose life span is 12 weeks, maybe 16 weeks, but often die before that time because they were signed to pack on weight beyond what their bone and organ structure can handle. They’re called broilers, and they were developed specifically to be fed as short a time as possible and butchered at as large a weight as possible, regardless of the hazards this imposes upon their systems.
Whatever you’re doing, know that it is enough.
I catch myself from time to time making excuses. I could have… I should have… And then I stop myself. And I remember, I did what I could do in that moment, given my allocation of energy among other factors. Even if I didn’t do as much as I could do in the moment, whatever I did, it was enough.
This is a hard lesson to learn. For those of us who are neurodivergent and/or disabled, the lesson is doubly so because our “enough” often appears to be less than an able-bodied, neurotypical person’s enough. And yet, when you think about what is going on behind the scenes, the energy management, dealing with sensory issues, working through trauma (because it is impossible to live in the Western World as a neurodivergent person without experiencing ongoing trauma), the truth is our “enough” probably equates to twice as much as an able-bodied, neurotypical person will ever do. We’re playing the game of life on hard mode and hopefully striving to find joy in as many moments as possible.
The way to disarm the “not enough” trap is radical self-acceptance.
Realizing that we are enough is the key to disarming the trap that thinking you’re “not enough” creates. Understanding that we are whole and complete in and of ourselves, that we are enough, that kind of radical self acceptance is at the heart of what it takes to stop thinking that you’re “not enough”. What you do matters. You matter.
There are spiritual dimensions to this as well that I’ll most likely explore in future blog posts and possibly the podcast. But until then, know that you are enough. Your stories matter. You matter.