To Be Enough

One of the many fault lines in our polarized society is over how we choose winners and losers: admission to “elite” colleges, selection for “prestigious” jobs. One team prefers “merit” – comparative performance on objective assessments – and the other prefers “equity” – prioritizing those with a cultural or historical disadvantage.

I can understand the perspectives of both sides, and yet I find myself asking: why must we choose winners and losers at all? Why do we choose to inhabit narratives, to create societies, in which some people are more than and others are less than?

There is an old argument that humans need competition in order to become our best selves – that without it we are lazy and unmotivated and unfulfilled.

Does that feel true to you?

What would you do, if you did not believe you needed to prove yourself?

I am not advocating for a world in which we validate everyone, in which everyone gets a certificate and a trophy. I am advocating for a world in which we no longer need to be validated, in which we are, all of us, enough.

There is another old argument that competition creates the best outcomes in a complex society – that a rigorous and selective process of medical training will create the best doctors.

Does that feel true to you?

How does your body feel with your credentialed doctor, compared to with your midwife or acupuncturist or naturopath?

Are we not selecting for those who would pursue prestige, who are willing to jump through the hoops and follow the rules, who would seek to join the ranks of the elite, rather than those with true aptitude, passion, a resonant calling within themselves to be healers?

I write, I perceive, through feeling into words and their meanings.

Elite, prestige, merit, career, promotion. These words feel empty, hollow, devoid of life. They are comparative, arbitrary, referenced outside ourselves.

Aptitude, passion, excitement, vocation, inspiration. These words feel full, vivacious, rooted within the core of our being.

We exist in both of these word-worlds. We are encouraged to pursue our passions to perfection and prestige, to leverage our aptitudes to become elite and worthy of merit, to follow our vocation into a career with a lifetime of promotions, to convert our inspiration and excitement into products and services, to promote ourselves in competition with other artists or authors or farmers or builders.

To shift what is outside we must first shift what is inside. Harvard graduates are only better than the rest of us, more deserving of comforts and luxuries, if we hold hierarchy within us, if we believe a story.

What if, instead of setting our children up for “success”, we supported them within their own journey of becoming?

may they abide

in the temple

of my love’s essence,

until they recognize

within themselves,

they are home.

—Hannah Elizabeth King, from For My Children

What if we stopped trading in currencies of respect and validation, hoping to earn it from others and doling it out sparingly according to our mental models of merit?

What if we knew, deep within ourselves, that we are already whole, that we are loved, that we are intricately interconnected?

What if our exchanges of words and goods and services became relational rather than transactional?

What if we truly saw each other, understood each other as mirrors of ourselves?

How then would we live?

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I do not want to succeed

I do not want to build wealth

I do not want to make the honor roll, the list of high achievers

I do not want credentials

I do not want to be chosen

I do not want followers

I do not want to be needed

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I want to be seen

I want to be known, understood

I want to see myself in you, and to see you in myself

I want to touch hands, hearts, minds

I want to create community

I want to create abundance

I want to give freely of myself, and receive in turn

I want to hear your stories, and share mine

I want to watch the full moon rise in every month and season

I want to lie under the stars, listening to owls and crickets

I want to greet each dawn as a new day

I want to poke my nose into roses and lilacs and daphnes and lindens

I want to stand in the storm atop the mountain

I want to plant seeds, tend them, share in the harvest

I want to soak in hot springs, gather around bonfires

I want to sing, to improvise harmonies

I want to write, to create, to share what is moving within me

I want to live in resonance: within, without, among, and between.

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I’d like to acknowledge the way in which this writing feels increasingly collaborative and co-creative. Kate’s comment on Love, Expanding which helped me to see the connection between our perceived insufficiency and the hierarchies we create. Hannah’s recent sharing of her poem, that felt like it belonged here. The synchronous timing of Eden Ariel’s recent invitation to enough-ness. Emma’s musings on resonance, which has been the central theme of my unfolding story and which will be my main focus for the summer solstice next month. And I am most grateful to all who read and share and offer perspectives.

With love,

Markael