When was the first time you felt less than enough? Maybe you don’t remember or maybe it’s a vivid memory, but I’m going to assume that you've been there. We’ve all felt that our efforts aren’t enough. That we’re not enough for a loved one or for something great or for a giant goal or dream. But where did that complex come from? When did we decide that we were not enough?
I remember the first time I experienced “not enough” in my own life as a tiny first grader. I had a lot of great friends. In fact, I had MORE than enough. But I was also a people pleaser, and I didn’t have enough time to satisfy everyone. I didn’t have enough energy to play with all of my friends every day. I didn’t have enough hair for everyone to play with (true story), and thus, the complex of striving for more -- a surplus of enoughness -- set in.
Junior high is the actual worst and anyone who has been through it can attest. It’s a time of insecurity and finding who you are, and the feelings of not-enoughness run rampant through the halls that reek of puberty and insecurity. Not enough friends. Not enough Aeropostale t-shirts. Not enough boys interested in you. Social media wasn’t really a thing when I was in junior high, and I can’t even imagine the added layer of insecurity and not-enoughness it brings to these fragile young souls who are trying to find their place in a new, intimidating world.
Then high school comes along and things maybe get a little better, but everything becomes more real. Relationships and emotions run high and everyone is under pressure to perform for the sake of their futures. Not-enoughness rages at a whole new level in all aspects of young adults’ lives and it’s so hard to navigate. I can remember exactly where I was when I received a text from my best friend saying that I wasn’t putting enough effort into our relationship. From that point on, I was highly aware that I lacked enoughness in the friendship area. I was watching my favorite show when a boy I liked jokingly told me that my body wasn’t up to his standards, and thus, I became aware that I wasn’t attractive enough and I needed to do something about it. I took the ACT ten times because I kept telling myself that I would be enough if I just got one more point higher. I would be successful if I could just raise my score a tiny bit. My awesome score felt like a failure every time I logged into the ACT website after a test to find out I got the same score again and again and again. My score was not high enough in my eyes.
Not enough friends. Not enough self-love. Not attractive enough. Not smart enough. We’re programmed from the time we’re little to believe that what we have or what we give isn’t enough. You have good grades? Great. Now get extra credit. Go for that higher ACT score. Get into your dream college. Oh, you got in? Congratulations! Now take more classes. Get involved in more clubs. You better throw in a few hundred volunteer hours to add to your resume too. Ah, your hard work paid off and you were one of the lucky ones who landed a job. But that entry level job isn’t enough to make a comfortable living. Go for that promotion. Get that raise. Move on for better opportunities and greater success elsewhere, and the cycle rages on and on and on. And we never stop grasping for more. We crave the “extra” and tie our worth to how high we can climb in any aspect of our lives. And when we don’t reach what we’re grasping for, the not-enoughness creeps in and eats at our souls. We drown in our efforts to be more.
Don’t get me wrong -- it’s important to set goals and achieve dreams. It’s important to progress in life and work toward things that make us happy, but when we can’t accept that our best really is enough, we’ll always be grasping for more and more and we’ll never be truly happy.
Stop for a minute and take a look at your life. If you’re reading this, you’re alive. Maybe you’re not well, but you’re alive. You’re breathing. Maybe you’re crushing it as the CEO of a new company you’ve been dreaming up for years or maybe you’re eating ramen noodles out of a plastic cup for the third day in a row and trying to figure out what to do with your life. Either way, take this as your personal invitation to take a deep breath. Stop what you’re doing. Realize that you are enough. You have so much to offer. You are beautiful and loved and worthy of every good thing in the world. And even when you feel like you’re not enough and when your efforts do fall short, God lifts you, sustains you, and makes up for every shortcoming you experience. With Him by your side, you will be more than enough.
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