The Concept Of Enough

You don’t need to be rich, famous, or powerful to be happy. You just need enough

When you hear about someone famous or rich you think “oh they must be happy, I’d be happy if I was like that.” But are they? Rich and famous people don’t seem more happy than anybody else. Often less. Whatever they have, it doesn’t seem to work, or at least it wears off.

When I was young I thought I wouldn’t be complete without power but now I’m generally powerless and it feels fine. I have some marginal control over a Beagle and avoid most oppression and this is more than enough. The people with power seemed stressed out all the time.

Especially when I was younger (I’m 40 now) I thought of happiness through other peoples’ eyes, how they would look at me, how they would talk about me, how they would feel. But as I got older I got experiences of that approval and it meant very little either way. Beyond the general feeling of not being a pox on your community, beyond the comfort of not being marginalized, I’m not sure how much happier you can be.

Our society is based on this driving ambition, not to start a company but to make a startup, not to run a profitable business but to make a killing, not to have enough but have a lot. But is it enough? Do we have a concept of enough?