Enough

You are doing enough.

I don’t know where you first heard the lie that you’re not. It doesn’t matter really, because since hearing it, you’ve absorbed it as your own, made it your own thought, your own condemnation. That voice, screaming in your ear, distracting you and destroying your confidence? That’s your voice. Those are your lungs. You’re out of breath because you’ve been shouting. When the drill sergeant bellowing becomes a devilish whisper of contempt, it’s because you’ve wasted your larynx, and a whisper is all you can manage.

You’re accomplishing plenty.

You wonder why you never seem to get anything done? You’re trying to do it all single-handed. You hold the gun to your head. That’s not someone else’s hand around the stock, someone else’s thumb on the hammer, someone else’s finger playing threateningly with the trigger. It’s you. Put down the side arm. Put both hands to the task. Quit torturing yourself.

You have time.

Move freely, not frantically. Be deliberate, not desperate. Intend. Don’t further entwine. Time is the one thing we most certainly have in abundance. Everything may indeed need to be done now, but the twist of time is that it is always now. The moment presses, but it always presses, and it always will. Time is eternal.

Be present.

Some things may indeed require timeliness, but timeliness isn’t a matter of immediacy. It is a matter of presence. To be timely is to be present. Existence is continued presence, not frequency of impact. A skipping stone does nothing more than make a few waves. A rock that dares to dip deep below the surface raises the very level of the lake. Settle into life for your own sake and for the sake of all those stretching their necks that their lips might kiss the waters.

Do not fear.

Fear is an instinct of self-preservation. Your self is your problem. You self sets itself up as the god to whom you must bow. To bow to yourself is lunacy, a never-ending somersault into loneliness and paranoia. The One in One with One has welcomed you into an ever strengthening feedback loop of love formed as forgetfulness-of-self that casts out all fear. Love is calling, “I am here!” Echo back…

There is only success.

How can you fail at living your life? There is no metric. There is no opponent. There is a Scorekeeper, a Head Referee, a Commissioner, but The Only One Who Matters long ago decided on a policy of grace and mercy. You are only limited by love. You cannot fail. You can only continue or quit. Those who would impose other standards of success upon you only want you to validate their choices, because there is no other validation of a self-imposed law than shared imposition by another self. Dance in the downpour of grace in the flood of life poured out on a weary land.

There is only success. Do not fear.
Be present. You have time.
You’re accomplishing plenty.
You are doing enough.