I am taking a class called Enough. Its being taught by Vicki Robbins, the women who wrote a book called Your Money or your Life. Well, which is it? Why you might ask is it either/or? Well I don’t know exactly what Vicki would say to that but I do know this, people do chose money over life. It happens in small ways and in big ways every day. One company my husband used to consult for chose to save $24,000 rather than budget for one net on a construction project that could save a life. The cost of death is less than the cost of the net. This is a true story. They chose death and they got it: 2 deaths per year and they saved $28,000.00 not buying nets. Then there are the smaller choices we make to take the job we don’t really love but we need the money. So I don’t know if we have to choose or live but I know there are countless examples of how we do choose one or the other.
So we ask ourselves this one simple question and believe it or not it places us on a whole different road one that leads to new and exciting places.
What is enough?
If the company could have answered that for itself, for its shareholders, for the earth those two deaths per year could be prevented. But we don’t even ask because more is the mantra of our society. More is the Holy Grail, deliberately undefined so as to keep us running towards it never knowing when to stop.
Well, as Vicki wisely knows, the first step to answering this question for ourselves is to find out first what is? What is comes before what is enough. Vicki asked us to track something in our lives: money, time, food, something so we could actually see what we are doing NOW. Well this simple little assignment packs quite a wallop. So much becomes clear: being in reality with what is currently so makes a difference. When I start tracking money or time or food I can see reality instead of seeing my story, my fear, my wishes. Once I have reality then I ask myself what is enough of this thing: what is enough money? What is enough time? What is enough food for me? When I ask what is enough I am beginning to take care of resource in a new way.