On Being Enough

I don’t know when we learn we are ‘not enough’ and have to hide from the world.

And I really don’t understand how we are not enough in some areas, and more than enough in others.

We are a complex bunch, us humans.

Maybe it was the struggle and teasing from school: when your shoes were pointed and laughed at because they weren’t the latest trend. Was it the way you wore our hair that day: when you slicked it back but it just looked greasy, or the way you wore that ponytail which you thought looked amazing but everyone else thought it looked stupid and told us so?

Was it because you couldn’t kick a football or ran like you were on fire so we were always picked last for a team? Your braces? Your worn clothes? Your constant visit to the teachers desk for ‘extra support’ with your spelling?

Maybe it was when that girl, today nameless, when she decided that she didn’t like you anymore and dumped you for that other girl, what was her name, and then shared our secrets you both pinky-promised never to divulge?

Was it because you were the sensitive one in the class, maybe it was because you weighed slightly more than your peers, perhaps it was because you simply grew faster than everyone else and teased for nature doing what it does best.

I don’t know.

But we learn it somewhere. Usually when we are developing and forming our place in the world.

We learn we are not enough.

And the learning teaches us not to be who we are because that runs a huge risk of it being teased, mocked or ridiculed.

Eventually the reason for feeling ‘not enough’ slips slowly away from our minds, we can’t remember the date, times and moments. But we sit with the residue of the feelings.

We are aware that somewhere in our past someone didn’t like what we brought out to the world. So we hide. Step back. Play it safe. Don’t do anything to overturn boats, or upset that girl, what was her name?

The thing is, you don’t have to agree with the learning anymore.

Sure, the feelings will arise, they were learned at a time when you were so innocent and susceptible, but you don’t need to follow them.

No more. And the beauty of being an adult is this, you can at any moment remind others that they are enough.

Ponder this:

Have you ever set goals that are beneath yourself because you perhaps have some residue with the learning you’re not enough, and you think it’s better to keep them small and stay invisible to the rest of the world? What’s that like? Is it working out for you?