Enough

I did not to make a list of goals this year.

For the past decade, every new year on my birthday I have drawn up a litany of major goals that I should accomplish.

Historically these goals were my guiding missiles toward “success.” I defined “Success” as an appropriate (to my expectations) increase in financial wealth (more money than material goods), status, and an unscientific ratio of “good” versus “not good” opinions of me given by other people.

Once upon a time, I celebrated major milestones with areas of increasing responsibility. I promoted myself by giving myself more work to do! As I just turned 40, I am surprised that I did not grab a stack of index cards to write a goal down in each card to put in places where I can see… these constant reminders of what I am supposed to achieve.

It’s not that I don’t have a to-do list.

In fact, the stakes have never been higher in my list of things to do. Almost everything in this list is about helping my child: helping him grow into consciousness, helping him connect with his human experience and environment, and ultimately helping him fulfill his potential.

Yet I feel no urge for goals: the perpetual motions of setting, calculating, and achieving.

There is another state of being that had slept within me, that’s waking up. For most of my life, I didn’t like this state of being, because I saw this state as wimpy and unimportant.

This state of being is called “Enough.”

I used to equate “enough” with complacency. Complacency causes people to get lazy. Complacency keeps people uninformed and disconnect from the action potential that will get them things! Important things! Like Property! Prestige! And Power!

But this does not feel like the complacent state of “enough.”

This is a different kind of “enough.”

When I hit upon this artery of truth — or rather — when this truth caught up with me, I knew that I had come face to face with what I had spent my entire 30s chasing and seeking.

All these years I chased goal after goal, sought guru after guru, scrutinized pearl after pearl of wisdom, because I wanted desperately to find what I thought hid from me until January 2, 2012, the day before my 40th birthday.

Here’s what this truth feels like:

“I am enough.”

“I have enough.”

“I feel profound joy and happiness helping this young human being (who may have an older soul than me) awaken, grow, and connect with his human experience.”

“I feel grateful for all the people who came into my life: the teachers the helpers even the troublemakers. Thank you for the privilege of this pilgrimage.”

For the first time in my life, I have a glimpse of an inner world peace that I had spent most of my life chasing. Maybe it’s because I’ve stopped running.

I finally gave inner peace a chance to catch me.