Kathleen’s recent post, Enough, zeroes in on a dynamic that is familiar to a lot of academics, writers, and creative people: the feeling that, no matter how much you do, it’s not enough. Kathleen beautifully explains how her sense of what enough is gets hijacked by mechanisms of “invidious comparison” rather than coming from “an internally focused sense of who I am and what I want to do.” She points out that online communication tools like twitter and blogs can offer us the possibility of community and shared accountability — but they can also encourage unhelpful comparisons.
Consider an example: many exercise-tracking apps now have a social media component, so my tweet stream tells me each day that Person X “ran 3 miles in 23 minutes,” or that Person Y “ran 6 miles and felt good.” Some days I read these tweets and feel inspired to run farther or faster myself; other days I read them and feel disheartened, even when they don’t reflect my own interests. I know it’s silly — I have no interest in running a marathon myself, and what some of the long-distance runners in my tweetstream consider their “easy runs” would be a huge achievement for me. But there’s something about seeing the numbers that can bring out an unnecessary (and ugly) competitiveness. When your social media stream is full of high-achieving individuals, it can sometimes be difficult to keep a clear sense of your own goals and standards, rather than trying to keep up with what other people are doing.
How to Define Enough
I’ve learned a lot from Jennifer Louden about how to define enough. She says that you should:
- decide in advance what is enough
- make sure it’s measurable and specific
- make sure it’s achievable by an ordinary you on an ordinary day
- declare yourself satisfied after you’ve done enough
(Jen has much more to say about what she calls Conditions of Enoughness, in her Satisfaction Finder kit.)
The two hardest parts of this process, for many of us, are selecting reasonable ideas of what is enough, and declaring ourselves satisfied.
What’s a reasonable measure of enough? Enough is personal. Enough is different for different people. Consider your breathing right now. Chances are, you and I are breathing at different rates right now, for all kinds of reasons: our age, size, physical condition, emotional state, posture, air quality, and room temperature are probably not identical. But chances are also good that you and I are each breathing enough.
For whatever area of your life you’re setting a definition of enough, it needs to be what you could do on an ordinary day. We’re all really good at coming up with fantasy scenarios of perfect days when we write X number of pages or run X number of miles — and then using those fantasies to judge ourselves when an ordinary Tuesday comes up short.
Enough is not a fantasy. Enough is not a goal. Enough is just enough.
This might mean setting your measure of enough lower than you might feel comfortable with at first. Make it something achievable, by you, right now.
We all have plenty of practice saying out loud or in our minds “I didn’t do enough.” The point of this exercise is to get practice saying I did enough. Doing that and saying that reinforces your commitment to setting your own standards and listening to your own internal wisdom.
Stop Comparing
As long as we’re comparing our numbers with someone else’s, we’ll probably feel bad at least some of the time. As long as we’re comparing our numbers with our unreasonable expectations of what we could do if we were superhuman or if it was a perfect 37-hour day we’ll feel bad at least some of the time.
Enough. Enough already.
What matters is simply: did I do the measurable amount I already defined as enough? If I did, then it’s time to acknowledge and celebrate that.
Let’s use Twitter to do Enough
I love the possibilities for support and community that twitter and social media offer us. So let’s use those for the good, and set aside the bad. Here’s how:
- Select one area of your life and define what’s enough for you (specific and measurable on a daily or weekly basis). Start small. Really small. If you want some help figuring out your definition of enough, DM me on Twitter or email me.
- Write down your definition, or share it with a friend. Saying it aloud or writing it down helps make it real. Please note that I’m not suggesting that you post your definition publicly, as that tends to lead to negative comparing of yourself with others.
- Go do enough, of whatever it is. Enough will move you forward. Enough will help you feel better.
- Acknowledge yourself and tell us on twitter (or your blog or FB or whatever social media you prefer) that you did it, using the hashtag #didenough. Or just email me and let me know!
I’d love to see what could happen if people start posting things like “I #didenough yoga today” or “I’m writing and #didenough.” Enough is good. Let’s use social media to celebrate that and support each other.
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