When Is It Enough?

The drive for enough keeps us indebted, always seeking the next source of satisfaction.
~Shiny Gods, Mike Slaughter

External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.
~Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

A double whammy today.

When is enough… enough? When are we going to be satisfied with what we have instead of constantly looking for more?

These are questions we need to be asking ourselves. Questions that are difficult to answer, but deserve to be.

We get on this rollercoaster of life, and we buy into the idea that we can get whatever we want whenever we want it. It’s hard to get off once that ride is going full speed. And it doesn’t take long in our society.

Did you know that advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry? It’s estimated that nearly $300 billion was spent in advertising last year alone. Why so much? Because it works.

I remember for years the highlight of the Super Bowl wasn’t the game itself (unless “your” team was playing), but it was the commercials – maybe the halftime show if it was a good year. (Anybody else remember how bad the Black Eyed Pea show was? Yikes!)

People would gather for Super Bowl parties, and there would be all kinds of conversation and games happening during the game itself, but when the commercials would come on, just about everybody would pay attention.

I don’t know if it’s like that any more. I haven’t really been to a Super Bowl party in years. But it doesn’t feel the same to me as it did when I was growing up.

Regardless of the quality of the commercials these days, the proliferation is greater than ever before. Radio, social media, television. It’s crazy. All of it just to tell us that what we have isn’t enough, and we need more.

But… do we?

There has to come a point in life when we look around and say, “That’s enough. There are better things I can do with my resources than buy more stuff.”

Eventually, whatever we buy is going to get tossed aside. It doesn’t matter if we buy the best, most expensive stuff we can find, or if we get it second-hand at Goodwill/Salvation Army/whatever thrift store you visit.

Sometimes, after a grocery run, I ask myself, “Are we going to eat this, or are we just going to throw it away in a couple of weeks?” I want to eat the fresh veggies and fruit, but sometimes, it goes bad quicker than we can eat it. It’s a game, really. Can I eat it before it starts to rot? I’m awful at this game. I’m sure to be playing it soon with the produce from my garden, as the tomatoes from four different plants change their hue from green to red.

At what point do you decide that what you have is enough? That’s something only you can decide.