You are enough ....

You are enough ... 

Most of us are familiar with this phrase  - I heard it again this week amidst the busyness of life but what exactly does it mean to you? 

Each of us comes to the table with a different set of values based on our upbringing - not a single one of us is the same, not a single one of us is perfect.

In  the fascinating ‘One, None And A Hundred-Thousand’ by Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936, Nobel prize winning novelist),   Vitangelo's wife makes him understand that absolutely everyone he knows or has ever met, has a different understanding of him in their own minds - he is different to everyone of them & very different to the one he has of himself in his own mind too. 

This interesting supposition weighed on my mind on my various trips to South Africa two years ago: I met with many family members - aunts, uncles, cousins, friends & we spoke about family members & others - what stuck in my mind is how differently we all remember people, places & past events based on our own experiences & how we view the world. 

Sometimes people in the same family remember events quite differently & this is a difficult one to understand so this is how I explain it:

I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a niece, a cousin to many, a sister-in-law, a friend,a patient, a teacher who is both patient & persistent, an intermittent blogger, a close & distant neighbour and each of those people have a different concept of me, each of those people see me differently to how I see myself. There are many versions of myself & none of them is not of me but none of them is the whole me, the one I know of myself. 

The books title explains it as - 

One - how we see ourselves 

A Hundred Thousand - how others perceive us, the many views others have of us, based on how they experience us, personally, professionally, socially 

None - none of these is the whole story

I hope that in all of the above, the main thought is that I am enough for each of them, that I have done my best for each of those people & that perfection does not exist in any of us - we just do what we can at that moment in time. 

So my thought to everyone who is balancing too many things is - you are enough. You cannot be all things to everyone but as long as you are doing your best, going kindly through the world, then you are enough, you are unique. 

We should focus on the progress we make through life rather than the perfection of life - we are bombarded by perfect social media images of life - perfect homes, relationships, figures, behaviour, meals, holidays, cars, homes, gardens, Christmas trees, social skills, popularity but that is really an illusion that is largely unattainable & it keeps everyone beating themselves up because they compare their life with this illusion. 

If we stop & say ‘I am enough’ then it keeps it all in perspective - when comparisons creep in, stop & say: I am enough.

Have a blessed 2022
Dee ~💕~