The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question

During my current "job/purpose/life direction/authenticity+security" search, a friend suggested a workbook to me. Yesterday, I downloaded it on Audible (yay, free trial!) and began to listen to it as I upkept my house, doing laundry from the camping trip, unpacking my bags from it. And one of the questions it asks a few chapters in, is one I paused the audio to write down and answer for myself:

“What is the one question I’m afraid to ask myself?”

I was both very quick and slow in my answer. Quick, in that I knew immediately what the question was; slow, in how hesitantly I wrote it on the page, one halting letter at a time:

“Do I think I’m good enough?”

Below this question, I wrote a second one: “What scares me about being with people?”

I drew an arrow from my second answer to my first.

Do I think I’m good enough?

It’s easy to give a knee-jerk, Yes, of course I do. But this question is the quiet force of erosion that hollows out all my actions, my self-esteem, and my ambition.

Interestingly, the question I’m most afraid to ask myself is not: “Am I good enough?” That one is much easier for me to answer affirmatively. It’s the part about “thinking” – do I think I’m good enough – that hampers me.

And therefore, the thinking is the part that I must step away from. That I must begin to give less credence to. Because what follows from that question is, “If I don’t think I’m good enough, do you?” And from here, I begin to place my self-worth in the hands of others who likely rub up against their own self-imposed limitations, and can’t possibly answer that for me in a way, like I said the other day, “that I can feel.”

My ex-boyfriend used to use a word that became an in-joke with us, because it bothered me so much, and he loved to see me get rankled: Adequate.

He deemed things adequate, and this incensed me! Things are never adequate, I’d retort. They’re either good or not good. The food wasn’t “adequate,” it was delicious or it was bland. My performance in bed was never (ever!) "adequate:" it was stunning. (He loved to get me on this one – you could see steam coming out my ears on this one.)

But, I hated that word beyond anything. I hated the idea of adequate, of something being “good enough.” What does that even mean??

Very briefly, I watched a t.v. show based on a Stephen King premise about wish-fulfillment. In it, one of the characters asks the wish-fullfiller for “enough money.” You can only imagine, in this dark tale, that “enough” was never enough. There is no exact value for “enough,” and the woman was always going back for more.

I hated the word adequate, because I interpreted it as NOT enough. If it were enough – you’d say that. If it were “adequate,” you’re just giving a “nice” word to something disappointing.

My ex’s game shows me, now, that my rancor against that word was because I was living in a definition of “good enough” that meant NOT good enough. I always hear the phrase with an inflection on the end that indicates the shoulder-shrug: "Good enough. (shrug.)"

What does good enough mean to me? What does adequate mean to me? Can these be positively interpreted?

Because the massive secret is that if does mean good enough, then there’s nothing to stop me from the pursuit of joy, fulfillment, and living a whole life. If I can change my understanding of “good enough” to mean, in fact, good enough (without the shoulder shrug), then the self-doubt falls away, or lessens greatly.

I am a good enough writer. I am a good enough woman. I am emotionally healthy enough to be in partnership. I am perseverant enough to continue producing art. I am good enough to submit work.

Some (all?) of these sound strange in my mouth, like it’s filled with marbles, awkwardly forming words that I’ve never said before, or have been too dubious to utter. Some of them I so desperately want to believe, I fear saying them at all, for fear that I’ll fuck it up.

It will always be my brain that thinks – but it will always be my soul that wants. It’s the vicious impasse that impedes both their efforts that causes me such anguish.

My brain is not strong … enough (ha!) anymore to override the wantings of my soul. But my soul is not yet bold enough to override the fearful thinkings of my brain.

The tie-breaker, as always, is the action of my body. I can type this without my brain’s approval and put it online. I can send an email to get an audition slot for a musical without my brain’s approval (and believe you, me, I have one chattery brain after sending that email). Action is always the key to change. Whether it’s my soul in the driver’s seat or my head, they can engage in the battle of the century behind my eyes, but meanwhile, my foot is pressing the gas, and I appear to be showing up – adequately.