When You Never Have Enough

Living in a world where you never have enough or, never are enough, is exhausting.

I've lived this way for the majority of my life and exhausting when you can never stop moving.

Declaring to live principled and free is the intellectual choice that you and I want to make.

Your heart will easily choose fear over principles so you don't screw it all up by drawing a line in the sand.

This plays out in my own life as well as the lives of the leaders that I serve.

Abundance or scarcity? No one says that want to live in scarcity but that's where we end up when we aren't mindful. Scarcity is a more automatic choice. It's a place of survival.

You can choose to play to win or you can play it safe. Playing to win sounds great until you think of the criticism that comes with taking a chance or making an unconventional choice. No one wants to be an idiot. This is why you hold onto people that work for you longer than you should because it's risky to leave a hole open on your team and risk not filling that hole right away.

Keeping employees who are not a good fit is akin to pouring water into a leaky bucket. You are doing a lot of work to fill the bucket but it never quite gets to where you want it to go.

Standards are risky too. What if you played full out to your standards? The risk there is that people won't like you or even worse, you won't live up to your own standards and then people will see what a phony you are. It's better to maybe have them but not focus too much on them then you don't have to let yourself and other people down. You don't have to risk making people unhappy or uncomfortable due to the standards that you have set.

All of this keeps you from living in a world of possibilities. In a world where you never have enough, it's easier to focus on what won't work and create the story around why it won't so that you feel justified playing it safe. In a world of possibilities, to quote Werner Erhard, you are the cause in the matter. Things happen through you. The things you are thinking about doing? They could work.

In those time where I am caught in never having enough, I think about who I can serve. Who can I create value for today to take the focus off of me and my problems and how do I use the talents and abilities that I have to make someone else's life better? Carl Rogers said that "who I am is enough if only I would be it openly." What you have is enough if only you can appreciate it and learn to use what you have to bless the lives of others.

You are enough. You have enough. You are a blessing and a gift to the people who are fortunate to know you. Remember that today and doing something great with it.