Have you ever wondered why it is that we never seem to have “enough”?
You wake up in the morning and think… I didn’t sleep enough.
You snoozed the alarm a few times. Now you are running late… I don’t have enough time.
You rush to work to finish off a few things from yesterday, thinking…. I’m not productive enough.
It’s never enough. Not enough time. Not enough sleep. Not enough exercise. Your diet is not good enough. And of course… Not enough money.
Is this ever going to stop?
The answer is NO. Unless YOU stop it.
I’ve been having feelings of “NOT ENOUGH” for a long time in my life. It never seemed to change. No matter what I was doing.
Always striving for goals. Wanting to achieve more. Once those goals were reached I already had set the next one. Because the first one was just not enough.
One day I stumbled upon a few articles about simplicity. I think it was on zenhabits.net from Leo Babauta. I was somehow pulled towards reading it.
Since then I read a few more books on the topic of simplicity. I’ve made changes in my life.
I realised that simplicity is king when it comes to overcoming the “Not Enough Syndrome”. The syndrome that is the fastest spreading disease of todays society. Forget about the Ebola virus – that’s nothing!
The truth is. The “not enough syndrome” is an intentionally created perception by society.
You are exposed to several thousand messages per day. Advertising is a trillion dollar industry. Yes… not millions, not billions but trillions!
Here is some of the stuff you are being told all day long.
- Buy the latest car. Because now it’s got this extra button that you don’t need and probably never use – but it’s looks cool (and your neighbour has one too!).
- Buy the latest phone. Because now you can talk to it and it will even answer your questions (because you know that you don’t have enough friends).
- Get in shape with the latest diet. Because you are fat and overweight and don’t fit into this world unless you loose 10 kilos.
- Use this special pill and you can sleep easily. Because sleeping is a wast of time and you should work more and sleep less anyway.
- Buy the latest productivity gadget. It’s all fancy, syncs with everything in your life (no idea what that means). And you need it because you are not productive enough (you lazy slacker!).
So unless we stop those messages from entering our minds and making us feel “not enough” this is not going to stop anytime soon.
Do yourself a favour. When you get the feeling of “not enough”. Stop for a second. Ask yourself where that thought is coming from.
Realise that it’s already “enough”. Right here. Right now.
Because if you don’t. It’s never going to be enough!