Enough, Again

There's what the world owes us, and what we owe the world; and which one you spend more of your time thinking about, I think, determines a lot about your character. In both cases, the question of what constitutes "enough" is important; but the answers are very different.

I've written often about how to define "enough" in the context of "what the world owes us"--and you know that I believe that we are all already far, far beyond it. The floor we can all agree on: enough food, enough water, enough shelter, enough education, enough clothing, enough love and security, to maintain physical and psychological health. This is not much, though, considering that happiness in North America has not risen since the 1950s when a family of five grew up in a 950 square foot house. We tell ourselves that we need more space because we need more stuff, and it's all bollocks. We don't; we want it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting, and there's nothing wrong with having more than you strictly need to keep body and soul knit together. But I do think we should be honest about our wants, identify them as such, and make sure that our wants are actually feeding us. That the things we want and have actually do make us happier, add to our lives in a measurable and significant way.

But since I've said so much about this before (and couldn't help but say it again, you'll have noticed), I wanted to tackle this from the other side: how do you know when you've given the world enough? Where do you draw that line?

The territory is wide and hotly contested. There's "enough to Save the World, all by yourself," which is impossible. There's "what, I gave twenty dollars to the Salvation Army last week, how much do you want from me?" which appears to be common and, I'll admit it, it's a point of view as foreign to me as the idea that women aren't actually people and the moon landing was a hoax. Somewhere in between those two extremes is a balance that lets us give something back to the world that is meaningful and effective (if invisible and immeasurable), and which doesn't deplete us to the point of exhaustion. It's not going to be in the same place for everyone--we differ in our resources and energy levels, if nothing else. So I can't tell you how to find that magic place. I can only tell you how I try to find it, because it's an ongoing search and that balance is constantly shifting.

I add something, and then I ask myself how I'm doing.

I suppose it ought to be more complicated, and I should be sitting down and writing out goals and lists and priorities and time budgets, but no. I add something, and then I ask myself how I'm doing with it. Is it enough? Can I do more? How much do I have to spare? Is it too much? How do I scale back? It's the only way to be sure, I think. Try it and see.

I also ask myself what it is that I'm trying to accomplish with this.

It's not Saving the World, because I can't. But there are things I want to accomplish with activism and volunteerism beyond doing my share. I want to connect the ideals that I so often write about with the real world--with real people and real places, not just theoretical ones. I want to get outside of my house and see if my ideas match reality. I want to express those ideas and that caring in a way that materially benefits someone. I want Frances to grow up assuming that this is something that people do, taking it for granted, instead of seeing it as some rare and exotic extra. I want her to learn how lucky we are, to train her to look down the pyramid more often than she looks up. I want to learn something new and become a better person than I am.

And when I look at that list and ask myself if I am doing enough--the answer is no. I'm not. I could be doing more. Not much more, because I am stretched fairly thin these days, and it benefits no one to commit to more than I can do and then renege. But more? Yes. I can do more. I can't read more, or write more (right now), or guilt people more, or donate more (though I will work on that six per cent); but if I am thoughtful and careful than I can find a way to do more that meets the goals I identified above. When I do, I'll ask myself again how I'm doing, if I can do more.

In the same way as asking myself, "Do I really need this? Do I want this? Will it really add to my life or am I looking for a quick fix? Can I do without this?" will, I hope, eventually get me to a sane and reasonable definition of "enough" on the what-I-get axis, I hope that asking "Can I do more? Am I doing too much?" of myself will do the same on the what-I-give axis. And then I'll end up at Enough.

Not Perfect, not Save the World, not Ideal. Just Enough.

~~~~~

In the meantime, I have volunteer applications on my desk to fill out and send in. And we'll see how it goes.

And, as promised, a list of non-bloggy folks who have donated some hours:

Karla--a green home renovation, egads. That's ambitious.

Morrigan--is researching volunteer opportunities

Laura C--is writing at least 3 letters to the editor this year

And Cinnamon Gurl, who has a blog but left her donation in a comment as well, is promising to do something for 2 hours a month.

All together so far I'd say that's about 75 hours here (including mine), maybe a bit more. Not bad.

Posted by Andrea at January 3, 2008 9:09 AM under The World

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