It is not enough

When is enough, enough?

I have never understood this expression, probably never will, but I imagine it like I imagine a geographical plane, a line of best fit, where it shrinks and expands to mean anytime that you feel ready to stop what you’re doing. It sounds like the footnote of the book “Getting through the American Dream,” it feels like a limp handshake, a little bit fishy.

I might never understand, but I can tell you what is not enough.

It is not enough to wake up. It is not enough to roll out of bed like you’re risen from the grave but prefer to be dead. It is not enough to brush your teeth, put your clothes on, eat the same meal you’ve eaten the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. It’s not enough to float, bleary-eyed, through your family’s life. Pull your window blinds up. Let the sunlight in at 7 when you don’t have to wake up until 10:30, even on a Saturday. Remind yourself how blessed you are to see another day. Remember those who haven’t.

It is not enough to wake up. You must also rise.

It is not enough to work, ‘work will save you, work will carry you from this urban Gehenna, will turn your rags into riches, will give you purpose’. Maybe. But though we measure our work in hourly rates – from $7 worthlessness to $1 million royalty – remember that our true work is measured in hands. The hands that we touch and our own hands, bruised, broken, worn. You can lie to your boss about how hard you worked today, but you cannot lie to yourself, when you look at the mirror at night, and turn your hands upward, and see skin as soft as the day you were born.

It is not enough to work. You must also give.

It is not enough to be religious. Throughout the centuries, faith has guided us, its internal rhyme borne deep into our hearts, like scar tissue, it never leaves us. Follow that faith. But remember that faith is about opening your eyes even when you’d rather close them, that the hardest thing to do is reach out without knowing what you will receive. Reach anyway.

It is not enough to be religious. You must also understand.

It is not enough to live. Anyone can make it through another day. Anyone can force themselves to breathe in and then remind themselves to breathe out. Anyone can wander from their cold bed to their comatose job to their cumbersome sleep.

No, it is not enough to live. You must also love.