Enough Is Enough 620.3
What does it take to make you happy? How much do you have to have to be grateful?
To the barefoot man, happiness is a pair of old shoes. To the man with old shoes, it’s a pair of new shoes. To the man with new shoes, it’s more stylish shoes. And, of course, to the fellow with no feet, it's being barefoot.
This leads to the ancient insight: If you want to be happy, count your blessings, not your burdens. Measure your life by what you have, not by what you don’t have.
Yet in our modern world where we’re continually exposed to endless increments of more and better — others with more money, better TVs, and bigger houses — this is very difficult.
For some people, the pleasure of having something good is drained as soon as they see someone else with something better. Our sense of contentment is created or destroyed by comparisons.
A life consumed with unfulfilled wants is an affliction. The antidote is the concept of "enough."
This starts by thinking more clearly about the difference between our needs and our wants, between sufficiency and abundance.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more and striving to fill our lives with things and experiences that give us pleasure, so long as we don’t believe we need whatever we want.
When we think we need what we really only want, we make our desires preconditions to happiness, thereby diminishing our ability to appreciate and enjoy what we do have.
It’s easy to think that happiness is achieved by getting what we want when it’s really a matter of wanting what we get.
In the end, enough is enough.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
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Comments
I love this commentary! It's so very true. We as a society are so caught up in keeping up that we can't ever appreciate what we do have. I always tell myself: "Things could be better, but they also could be a lot worse."
Posted by: Jaymie | May 29, 2009 5:15 AM
It was after my husband and I started a charity 9 years ago that it hit home hard how blessed we are and grateful for every day together. Letters from Home, Inc. weekly writes to over 300 senior citizens throughout the country in nursing homes and to shut-ins. We write about family life and help them recall happy times in their past. By so doing we have come to the realization that a close family and good memories are so much more important than things. When things are gone . . . and they will be gone one day, we will still have the joy of remembering all the wonderful times in our lives. I plan to sit around some nursing home one day with a smile on my face just by going back to all the joys God has given me throughout my life.
Posted by: KJH, Oxnard, CA | May 29, 2009 10:50 AM
Very true.
Posted by: jock | May 29, 2009 3:44 PM
To paraphrase an old saying: “No one ever said on their deathbed that they should have accumulated more possessions.”
Posted by: James | May 29, 2009 3:44 PM
If you are not happy with what you have, what makes you think you will be happy with more?
Posted by: Charlie | June 1, 2009 5:26 PM
Good point!
Posted by: Doralee | June 2, 2009 1:17 PM
Being kind to others makes many people happy. If you are not happy about something, share a random act of kindness with another person, an animal or our planet. While you're brightening someone else's day, yours is sure to become happier. www.meetup.com/randomactsofkindnessAH
Posted by: Friends from the Random Acts of Kindness Club of Arlington Heights | June 2, 2009 4:36 PM
The problem, or great challenge, with gratitude is that it is an ‘after the fact’ experience. It usually comes when we no longer have something we always had, or suddenly have something we never had before. Gratitude is often the opposite of taking things for granted. Today I live with a disability, caused by multiple sclerosis, and this experience has taught me more about gratitude than I ever could have learned in a life without incident. I have also learned that more than anything else, gratitude is the key to happiness. I have written quite a bit about this topic for anyone to read at http://mgerber.blogspot.com.
Posted by: Michael B. Gerber | June 3, 2009 12:44 AM