is it enough?

A couple of years ago, my friend JJ and her husband tired of city life and moved to a beautiful river-community 200 miles south. Before they moved, JJ and I had met every three or four weeks (in a coffee shop, of course!) where we’d share our goals for the month ahead, and hold each other accountable for our achievements from the previous month.

We’d leave our sessions feeling invigorated, ready to take on the world!

We’d explore the creative process. We’d share breakthroughs. And—since we are both somewhat type-A personalities—we’d remind each other to take good care of ourselves and those we love along the way.

JJ would grill me: What have you done for yourself this month? Have you been working out? Have you been eating healthfully? Have you been having fun?

Well sure, JJ, I've been having fun; probably more than most. I have hours of sheer glee. And some ridiculously goofy days and weekends, filled with endless laughter and wonderful people. But as we zoom toward the close of another year—and another birthday—I’m doing my “annual thing” and questioning if that’s enough.

~ ~

I was raised by war-babies. Wonderful, well-grounded people who, at three- and six-years old, were regularly woken from scattered dreams by the rude screech of air-raid alarms announcing approaching enemy bombers. In the dead of night, my grandparents bundled their frightened babies into coarse, dry blankets, scooped them in strong arms, and rushed them to the bottom of the garden. There, they huddled underground in the cold corrugated-iron of their Anderson bomb shelter. With teeth chattering, from fear as much as cold, they told stories and tried to snatch moments of sleep, all the while listening for the eerie silence that preceded a falling bomb.

These people were pragmatists. They had no side to them. No superficial gloss. No hidden agendas or devious manipulative meanderings. You knew exactly where you stood with them at any given moment of any given day.  They were resilient and no matter what came their way, they knew they'd get through it.

I grew up with that British Stiff-Upper-Lip doctrine; hold your head high, suck it up, get over yourself. Do the right thing. Don’t be self-centered; don’t show-off; don't be rude; don’t use other people. Work hard. Do things to the best of your ability, or don't do them at all. Think of those less fortunate than yourself. Be grateful for what you have. Do what you have to do; don’t whine about it. And by God, girl, if you’re going to do it … do it with passion!  

~ ~

For the most part, I don't whine about things, but as I review the past year—at that birthday time of year—and what I think, might-or-should-or-could-or-would-be, it feels somewhat self-indulgent, maybe be even narcissistic.  This 'self-thinking' is incongruent to the way I was raised ... my parents and certainly my grandparents, would call it self-absorption ... then add, "This is what's wrong with the world today". Maybe they reflected on these things too, but didn't say them out loud. Given their generations, I think that's most likely.

In today’s society when so much emphasis is placed on self-fulfillment, self-growth, self-improvement, self-actualization, self-self-self ... have we become a selfish society?  Is it selfish to expect to live, to learn, to laugh—and most importantly—to love out loud?

Is it self-indulgent to want to rise above historical references, constraining beliefs, self-imposed limitations? Is it enough to be content with what-is? To concede to the perfunctory veneer of what is easy or expected or known? Is it enough to yield to what is gratuitously given? Or what simply comes our way?

Or should we strive for what, or whom, we ache for? For that which makes us burn? For what we perceive life might-or-should-or-could-or-would-be if we took a risk; if we laid ourselves bare, opened ourselves up, and stretched beyond the comfort of our current being?

I know what I think. What do you think?