ENOUGHNESS

 

“You’ve got to learn to leave well-enough alone.” My mother said these words to me practically every day of my youth, but it took years for me to fully grasp the meaning.

I’m a tad on the OCD side of things. If I’m cleaning something, I have a difficult time stopping. 

When I sit down to write, I have a difficult time getting up. My mother could see that even as a child I was what some would call “Type A.”

I grew up in a strict Pentecostal church. No one in my family went, I went on my own. All of the rules and regulations were just right for one who believed that there was no such thing as “well-enough.”

Something in that church socialization led me to think and then believe that I could never be good enough for God.

I couldn’t give enough, do enough or be enough. We were told by many-a-folk who had the microphone that our best was a filthy offering to God.

Amazingly, our pastor, a quiet soft-spoken man didn’t see things that way. But Rev. Rainey was not the firebrand that could bring down the fire.

The loud emotion tugging ministers were the ones who let us know that God was never pleased.

The combination of poverty, Pentecostalism and a poor perspective of my own self led me to believe that I could never be enough.

Enoughness is the state or condition of being enough. Until you can see yourself as sufficiently adequate for the task before you, you will find it very hard to believe in yourself, love yourself, or do any of those things the good songs tell us to do.

Enoughness is not about having or doing; it is about being. I could write much more on this; I can make this better, but I’m going to leave well-enough alone.

Be you, be well, be enough.

Bertice Berrry, PhD.

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