You Already Have Enough. Let It Change Your Life.

Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday here in the U.S. If you're unfamiliar, Thanksgiving is a holiday for family and friends to gather all centered around one big meal. Traditionally, the meal consists of turkey and potatoes, stuffing and green beans, and dessert like pumpkin or apple pie, but everyone celebrates a little bit differently. It's wonderful. My wife's favorite meal of the year, in fact. A Thanksgiving day preparation is an entire routine and ritual that, at times, can look a little hectic. At least it does in our home. There's a lot of work that goes into preparing the meal. Often, both the women and men are scurrying about cooking and helping. As the kids get older, they might begin to help out as well, so lots of cooks in the kitchen. There are decisions to be made about what goes into the oven at just the right time, where to put things on the counter while they're waiting, and if the table is getting set just right for the meal. Plus, everyone is hungry the entire time because they're saving space to eat. But everyone eventually sits down and the table is filled with dishes like a huge buffet. In our family, we pray and then you eat. Immediately, there's a big rush of chaos, people gathering food and filling their plates. You grab your turkey and potatoes and stuffing and gravy. You start to wonder if the green beans are ever going to get past your direction. You notice that the little kids are taking all the rolls. You start to worry that your cousin is taking all the dark meat. You're searching for the salt and the pepper, wondering about the butter. Am I going to have room on this plate for the cranberries? But then, eventually, you get to eat. And there inevitably comes a point in the meal where you begin to feel full. You've eaten enough and suddenly you don't need or even want any more food. You lean back in your chair, content. You've had enough. And suddenly, everything changes. It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing at the table. It doesn't matter that the little ones are taking the last of the rolls. It doesn't matter where the butter is or the salt and pepper. It doesn't matter that your cousin is going back for a third helping of the stuffing or that someone else just took the last of the dark meat. Suddenly, none of that matters anymore. You've had enough. Regardless of the options in front of you, regardless of what everyone else is chasing and consuming, you don't feel the need to do so anymore. It is a wonderful feeling of contentment. That is the promise of enough. Once you have attained it, you begin to see everything differently. Now, consider how this feeling of enough might change our lives in other areas. What if we realize that we already have enough physical possessions? What would happen if we looked into our closets and fully noticed that we own enough clothes or that our house was big enough, that we had enough decorations or furniture or tools or cars? What if we fully believed that we already have enough stuff? Suddenly, we would begin to see everything around us differently. Once we realized that we had enough, it wouldn't matter what other people are chasing or accumulating or buying. It wouldn't matter that my neighbor is buying another car. I already have enough. It wouldn't matter that there's a new sale at Kohl's. I already have enough. It wouldn't matter that Black Friday is right around the corner. I already have enough. It wouldn't matter that Christmas is coming or the holidays or someone's birthday and someone else might be getting more gifts than me. I have enough and it wouldn't matter that the magazines tell me my clothes are out of style or the newest tech gadget has more camera pixels than ever before because I have enough. This is a realization that would change everything about us. We could fully remove ourselves from the consumerism that dominates so many people's lives. The realization would free up money, time, space, and energy for the things in life that really matter. It is an unbelievably freeing feeling to discover that you already have enough in life. There are, of course, many people in the world who do not have enough, but even those who do rarely recognize it. This is because we live in a world that constantly shouts to us that we don't have enough. We're being sold more and more every single day. They're constantly placing more dishes on the table, convincing us that we haven't eaten enough yet, encouraging us to war against our neighbors to be the one with the fullest plate of food. But as Maya Angelou once said, we need much less than we think we need. And once we can look around and realize that we do indeed have enough, our lives begin to change in beautiful ways.