PEr Chronicles: Know your enough
In the span of a week, three women who won titles within the Miss USA organization resigned. Miss USA 2023, announced her resignation, saying she was choosing to focus on her mental health. Within days, Miss USA Teen 2023 and Miss Colorado USA 2023, both stepped down, as well. Fans pointed out that the first letter in every sentence of Miss USA’s online statement spelled out “I am silenced.”
What makes us happy?
It’s definitely not money. Oh, you might think money would make you happy. But would it really? Let’s say you inherited a billion dollars. You could have a private jet, live in a mansion with a swimming pool, drive a Maserati. But would all that money really make you happy? Would your family and friends really love you more?
OK, they probably would, especially if you let them ride in your jet. People would audition to be your friend. I would be one of these people.
Forbes reported that research suggests that above $75,000 of income, happiness is driven by things like the quality of one’s relationships, health, and leisure time, and money isn’t a factor.
I still remember my early 20’s. I began using whatever skills I had to make ends meet. As I hustled and learned, I lived in limbo of not knowing if I would have enough. My mother’s daily mantra was self-sufficiency and independence, yet my 21-year-old self sometimes felt thrown into the deep end. I had to ask: what did enough really mean?
Enough money to take care of myself? Enough joy to remember what’s good in life? Enough courage to take the next step?
In today’s consumer-driven world, we are plagued by a stubborn script that proclaims “more is better” and taunts you for never doing, earning or achieving enough. Among its popular manifestations is that you will never have enough power to make a difference, or prestige to feel important or money to be rich or success, period.
At the end of the day, too many people struggle to answer: Am I enough?
Knowing your enough does not mean being miserly or living in scarcity. If that’s your reaction, you’ve misunderstood this superpower entirely. A great irony of this superpower is that in a world focused on more, you’ll never find enough. Yet in a world focused on enough, you’ll immediately find more.
Knowing your enough brings clarity about what really matters. If you’re hustling on the hamster wheel and aren’t clear on your enough, expect a world of pain when change hits. Put another way, when change knocks you upside down, the more you need – the less flexibility you have to adapt.
Go back to your legacy. When you’re gone, people won’t remember whether you had “more.” They will remember how you treated them. Positions are temporary. Ranks and titles are limited. But the way you treat people will always be remembered. You are not defined by your purchases, nor am I stuck chasing ever more. Your worth comes from within.
I sure wish I’d known all this when I was twenty-one.