April is a good month for “good enough”. Most years, including this one, April is when I celebrate Passover. During the seder, we sing an over 1000 year old song, Dayenu – “it would have been enough”.

This year “enough” has been on my mind. My parents are nearing retirement and I am nearing middle age. Both of those feel like milestones to think about “what is enough”.

I feel bombarded with messaging about “enough”– all the new crop of pop-financial advice is about “enough”. Die with Zero, Living Your Rich Life, and FIRE are all, to a degree, about understanding what is “enough” when it comes to money. My own experience, being fortunate enough to see my income and wealth grow over time, is it’s hard to feel “enough”. My mind knows that I can live with less fear, but my body still feels nervous, like ruin and catastrophe is always around the corner.

My two nervous systems have a different idea about what is enough.

I’ve continued to struggle with my weight and my body like I have all my life. For me, it’s not what I eat so much, but it’s about portion control. I am hungry– often. It’s hard to feel satisfied. I want to be entertained by my food and can’t make myself have a purely instrumental relationship with food.

My mind and my stomach and my body all have different ideas about what is “enough”

I let this blog post sit in almost this exact state for most of April. I sat on my blog redesign for almost 6 months before just releasing it as is for the same reason.

My energy level to write and my idealized version of this blog post (and blog) have different ideas about what is “enough”.

This month’s indieweb carnival is actually about “good enough”. But I don’t really have problem with the “good” part– I have problems with the “enough” part. If it’s enough, it’s always good. And my problem is really about allowing myself to recognize and feel when we’ve hit “good” so that I can say “enough”.