I’m not enough… it’s never enough: Self-inflicted wounds that damage us more than anything in the world!
So often, I hear people complaining, that they are not happy, or say, “I feel a dark cloud follows me around”. “I have everything I could ask for…yet I am not happy”. What we fail to recognize here is that most of this agony is self-inflicted and the pain, self-induced. The need to compare our self to others, the need to surpass our goals and aim higher, has become such a magnanimous problem of this over-functioning, overachieving era, that we are drowning in these comparisons.
We feel the weight of something on our shoulders, but fail to recognize that this weight is there because we put it there. We compete for every moment of our lives, trying to do better in life, get to the higher ranks or make more money, but we fail to realize how this cutting-edge competition is taking a toll on our happiness, our well-being and eventually our health. We fail to pause and estimate the price we are paying for this so-called success.
The modern age perfectionists are everywhere. Look around, and you will see one; maybe it’s you; I know I am one of them. The reason I am writing this is that for decades I metaphorically cut myself every day, just to experience the high of doing something exceptional. I kept setting the bar higher and higher, and some days the pressure to jump it was so much, that I was warping under the stress. For those who don’t know what cutting is; it is a new age trend, mostly popular amidst teenagers, that do this to either to get a release of their bottled-up emotions, mostly sadness, or to get a thrill/high for a few moments, because it’s the rush of dopamine experienced when doing the forbidden.
Our logical selves are great at churning numbers and calculating profit and loss statements and preparing Excel spreadsheets, managing every aspect of our lives. We have apps on our phones that can manage each minute of our lives. Telling us we need to drink 8 oz. of water or take 5 deep breaths or do the 5 burpees you set the alarm for. But do we have an app that tells us, take a break and stop judging yourself? Do you ever make time to say “good job done!”, now take a breather?
I find this competitive world does not let us enjoy our victories or celebrate our achievements because, by the time we get to one goal, the next one is already ready to be pursued. It took you four years to finish that degree and you worked really hard for it, but once that certificate was in your hand, you start worrying about how to start your business and where will you get your clients from and more. You start a business and it succeeds more than you expected, so you start another one because you can, and another one and this rat race never ends.
The feeling of never enough is unsatisfying, but the feeling of “I am not enough”, is even more devastating, and hollowing the soul. The most common victims of this plague are the overachievers, the smarty-pants, that have been told, they can do anything they want, or maybe they know it. Some of these achievers today are those that had been told, they will never amount to anything, and they did it just to prove they could. This quest for more success becomes a curse for them because they never feel satiated. I am in no way or form suggesting, don’t aim high or don’t shoot for the stars, or don’t have those big hairy audacious dreams. All I am suggesting is take time to live your life. Your life today… your life as is. Enjoy time with yourself and your loved ones. Tomorrow will come, and I encourage you to go make it big, and strive to shoot for another star, but don’t ruin today because you were trying to create a better tomorrow.
Sometimes we get to tomorrow when we were “supposed to be happy”, but we find our self, lonely and alone there. Our family left us because we had no time for them, we were too busy pursuing our goals and dreams and we also have a cabinet full of meds by then because we have hypertension, some other chronic ailment and more. At this stage, many of us question our selves, “Was it worth it? Or, “Is this what I wanted?” Our accountant-self calculates that we are at a loss; we paid a much higher price for this transaction. We are unhappy again, and what was supposed to make us happy, does not make us happy.
Happiness is in the now, and each of us is responsible to generate their own happiness, every day. Destroying our today and living for tomorrow is not the formula for happiness. Living your life today is. This festive season, take time to reflect on your life and recognize those years in your life that you barely have any memories of. Maybe your kids grew up, and you never enjoyed that journey. Stop comparing yourself to that more successful person or that bigger success. Take time to live life and as they say smell the roses. One life to live might as well have a little fun on the way without having to pop a s**t load of medicines for breakfast and dinner or be alone at the top. Love yourself and others, and live a little more.