Monday, December 30, 2013

Sufficiency.

I've been reading this amazing book by Brene' Brown, called The Gifts of Imperfection. And there was one passage that really struck me in which she quotes Lynne Twist's The Soul of Money:

"For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is 'I didn't get enough sleep.' The next one is 'I don't have enough time.' Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it...We're not thin enough, we're not smart enough, we're not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough - ever. Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something."

Scarcity.

She then goes on to say that addressing scarcity doesn't mean searching for abundance, but rather choosing a mind-set of sufficiency:

"We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don't mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough and that we are enough."

I think this hit me so hard because I've been in this mind-set of scarcity for a long time. It feels like every night when I look to the clock and see that it's late, I think "I'm not going to get enough sleep tonight. I'm going to be tired tomorrow." Before I even go to bed, I'm already lacking. There is always something lacking, in my life or in myself. But even since reading this passage yesterday, I've been able to start shifting my thinking. I'm tired of living in that space where my life doesn't seem to fit around me, and I can't grasp why. I'm tired of being unfulfilled and not knowing how to fix it. But what if it doesn't need to be fixed? It's not really what I have or don't have right now, it's what I'm choosing to see as "enough". I'm going to set goals, small goals for myself, and seek hope. Today, and tomorrow, and hopefully each day to come, I will choose to see my life as enough.


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