How Much is Enough?

Life is one big shout for someone to watch us while we do a 360° spin into a pool. The entirety of our actions, and the thoughts that drive them, revolve around this basic need. Look at what I can do! Listen to what I have to say! Where are you? Are you with me?

We’ve never felt more lonely as a society. And the effects of that have been devastating. So what do we do? More empathy. More listening. More willingness to share the bad stuff. More perspective. More paying attention. A resounding yes to all of the above. We need to do more of all that stuff.

However, there’s a limit to empathy and understanding. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand another person’s feelings, perspective and overall experience. I’m fairly confident in saying that it is not possible to fully take on another person’s experience . I’m not you and you’re not me. It’s not realistic to think that someone will be able to see things as I do 100% of the time. Life just doesn’t work like that. So the question then becomes, how much is enough?

Expecting this level of understanding from everyone, all of the time, is setting yourself up for failure. Doing the work to understand everything for yourself can be exhausting. Then comes the even trickier part of trying to effectively communicate that stuff with other people. It’s a lot to take on. And when that expectation and effort isn’t met, for whatever reason, it can be such a letdown.

It’s tempting to completely shut down in those situations, but that’s not the answer either.  We need other people to understand what we’re going through, warts and all. That’s how secure, meaningful connections are formed. And that’s everything.

This all-or-nothing mindset is rife throughout my life and I work on it a lot, mostly with the help of my therapist. Recently, she told me a story about a young child. There were 5 munchkins left in the box but he was only allowed to eat 2 of them. He didn’t want to only eat 2 munchkins, so he pouted and stamped his feet to try and make it better. “Isn’t 2 munchkins better than none at all?” she asked. Of course it is! But it feels insufficient in the moment because we’re tantalized by more.

After recovering from the embarrassing realization that I pretty much have the same thought process as a young child, it dawned on me. Our ways of thinking don’t really change that much over time. Sure, the subject matter becomes “more serious” in nature. But the patterns will remain unless we intentionally seek to alter them. These choices, where it’s either some or none, tend to become harder over time, because we’re constantly made more aware of the other munchkins left in the box.

All-or-nothing mindset is the fuel of the advertising and self-improvement industry. We get a taste of improving our circumstances and that sets the wheel eternally in motion. Bigger! Faster! More! Better!

Empathy, understanding and self-improvement are all good things, and we need them, but they do have their limits. I mean, the ultimate goal of self-improvement is to not feel like you need to improve anymore. But of course nobody is ever going to tell you that, because then we’d stop buying. The catch is, we’ll never get there. We’ll never be “the improved being” with no flaws. Once that wheel starts spinning it’s hard to ever get off. “If only I could…”, “but if I just do this…”, “I just need to…”, there will always be something. So, again, the question becomes, how much is enough?

How much improvement do we actually need? How much of it is based on wanting to improve and not based on some neurotic achievement game? How much do we need other people to understand our situation? What is the end goal of creating that understanding? What if someone understands a quarter of our point of view? Would that be enough?

This is all very weird for me to say. I mean, much of my writing has been trying to make you, the reader, understand what my life is like. I’m proud of every single thing I’ve written, but I’m getting to the point where I’m kind of over that need to always be explaining myself. I’ve realized that I don’t need anyone else to fully grasp what it’s like for me.

This has nothing to do with anyone else. There’s nothing else to do on your end. You’re good. It’s more coming from the place of me valuing my own opinion of myself more than I used to. I think I was looking for other people to validate stuff for me because my knowing felt inadequate. I’ve learned to trust and value my knowing more than anyone else’s. I know what it’s really like, and that’s become more than good enough. I know how I feel and what I experience. And I know that I know how to give myself what I need.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing, or stop trying to make people understand, or stop trying to understand myself more. I’ll never stop doing that. But it does mean that I’m going to stop looking for something that’s impossible to find.

The erratic nature of my current situation makes me feel crazy a lot of the time. The unpredictability of my health on a day to day basis really keeps me on my toes. I try to work with it and describe it as best I can. But, if I’m being honest, the true essence of cancer and what it does to you is truly incommunicable.  As Eckhart Tolle said:

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.

I guess I expected a full understanding of my situation to make it easier. And it does to some degree, don’t get me wrong. But even a 100% level of understanding from every single person on Earth would not take away the struggle in the day-to-day.

This doesn’t mean we go through life alone. Effective communication with the right people about problems and concerns in one’s life is vital. My doctor helps me with the physical. My therapist helps with me the mental. My family and friends help me with the love and support. I know they’re all there with me carrying the possibility of all that good empathy and understanding. But I also know that they won’t get me 100% of the time and that’s quite alright. I know that no one else can do it for me and the only person who can put all the pieces together to make my life the way I want it is me.

Asking how much is enough means getting more comfortable jumping into the pool with no one watching and knowing that you crushed that 360° spin. It means being alright with eating 2 munchkins instead of 5. It means realizing that life isn’t lived at the polar ends of the spectrum. It means being open with others but also being confident in your own ability to hold it all. It means figuring out that sometimes you already possess what you’re seeking to get from others.

Thanks for reading!