When I say Good Enough Life, people often respond with some version of, “I love it! But of course, we also need to keep striving to become better and more successful people…” Which just shows me how much resistance we have to the idea of being Good Enough.
I glimpsed a few articles online when I was trying to figure out if I had published this site or not (I hadn’t). A couple of interlocking themes stood out: Seven (or pick a number) Steps to (work hard so you can generate the) Feeling (of being) Good Enough. In other words, you aren’t good enough, and you even suck at pretending you are, so here’s some more busy work to take you away from your anxiety and existential dread… The other theme was: I Used to be a Slacker and That Ain’t Good.
The idea behind this blog, behind the Good Enough Life, is pretty simple: Not driving ourselves crazy with what’s not ultimately of true value to us. It isn’t about working ourselves up into finally being Good Enough. Guess what? Yes, we are all Good Enough already. I know you don’t believe it. We will look at that another time.
It isn’t about slacking, or never getting anything done, although for many people who overwork and overreach and overstress, the idea of doing anything to merely a Good Enough degree may seem like slacking, and will bring up a lot of anxiety.
I am not partial to slacking any more than I am partial to overexertion for no good reason. I also do not have all of this figured out. I am writing, in part, because I need to learn all of this. I am also writing it because I know I am not alone. In fact, I believe this is the wave of the future, this relearning of how to function on a human scale. And, if in the future we have more balanced lives, that is going to benefit everyone, including the planet and all the lives we share it with.
Yes, I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition. And I know that you understood the meaning of the sentence. So, it is, for the purpose of this blog, good enough.
Here’s a bit I typed out yesterday on the fear of relaxation. Since I typed it, I can’t edit it on here. I could edit and re-type it, but I’m practicing being OK with letting people see my messy process. That’s part of why I am incorporating typed pieces into this blog. Also, I love typewriters.
This was typed on a black 1936 Corona Standard flat top. If you were wondering. Well, it was typed on that machine even if you weren’t wondering. It just was. I typed it there. So I know.
Next week is my spring break, and I’ve been pondering what to do with the time since – for a wonder – I am not as behind in [the] work [that I get paid to do] as usual. So today I made a list using three colored markers: blue for “things I want to do,” green for “things that would make me feel better if I got them done,” and purple for “things that would make me feel I’d accomplished something if I at least began them.” I thought about making a red list of “things I SHOULD do,” but I’ve earned some down-time, and anyway I’m a mom & a teacher, which means there is such a list indelibly burned into the back of my eyelids, so I decided not to create further angst by adding to it. Maybe tomorrow I will gather courage (thank you for explaining the heart connection!) to cross off the items of one color . . . which do you think it should be?
and yes, I realize that by creating such a list I’ve demonstrated how afraid I am of not just resting.
I would suggest, rather than crossing off any of the categories, you consider what your priority is for the day and do a small step in the most important category. It is a worthwhile thing, I think, to have your desires laid out like that. But only you can say, at any given moment, whether you want to feel accomplished or do something you want, or feel better, or…?
I really encourage looking into Stephen Guise’s work about mini habits. It’s really revolutionary and – gasp – so easy, so fundamental, and reasonable. Things I rarely have trusted myself to be.
I hope you keep typing your entries. Not tidy, like life is not tidy.
Thanks, Pam, that is how I feel about it, too!