Enoughness

Enoughness: 15 October 2025

I subscribe to a Substack newsletter called The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker. Every couple of weeks I get a little dose of encouragement to pay attention. Understand, I am someone who prides herself on noticing. I am also constantly flummoxed by people who don’t notice. Spellbound cell-hounds certainly. But even people not staring at their phones blithely pass by wonders large and small.

I’ve always been a good noticer. As a child I prided myself on being observant, like Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown. As a teen I discovered that noticing was a superpower: bullies were disarmed by remarks indicating they’d been closely observed. Friends were surprised and pleased by spot-on praise or empathy. Only in the last few years have I heard the term empath, but I think that factors in, too. (That’s for another essay.)

Noticing takes one outside of oneself into a realm of curiosity. A stance of openness to what is there in the world, instead of shoving the world into the box we’ve already assumed for it. Noticing takes a willingness to put down the mental to-do list, the ravaging calendar invitations and carpool times and can I get to and from Costco before that zoom call. Noticing slows us down, which is a big positive that is mistaken for a big negative.

Slowing down is important for mental health, as well as for interpersonal relationships. It’s why parents of toddlers count to ten so many times every day, and why parents of teenagers count breaths. As my Quaker Friends used to say, “Don’t just do something, sit there!” Most things benefit from a little reflection.

It’s hard to slow down. From social media algorithms to the 24-hour news cycle to work/life non-balance, we are constantly assumed to be available. A common lament is that our attention is the latest commodity. Too many things are vying for our attention. I believe this wholeheartedly and am a victim of the commodification of attention. So many things keep me awake at night. Certainly current affairs and the hollowing out of our democracy. But also, all the things that go with coordinating the logistics of a family with teenagers, plus the dog who had a suspicious lump on his belly (it’s fine) and college applications and volleyball tryouts and work and weekend travel and stewardship campaigns and volunteer commitments.

A lot of people need me. It’s a gift. And a compliment. It’s what I’ve chosen. And. I can get swallowed up.

Do you know the poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning? John Donne describes his lover as the fixed foot of a compass which holds steady while he roams (but the fixed foot leans and hearkens after the wandering one). I’ve always loved this image. I think that I, both intentionally and unwittingly, have planted myself as the fixed foot. One would think that that’s the easier place. But it turns out that the anchor must be the stronger one. It holds the tension and balances the outward force of that outer circling foot. If there are several wandering feet, well, the leaning and harkening can become hard to sustain.

That’s where I found myself in early October when I sent out this blog essay preview. For those who do not subscribe, here’s what I said:

I’ve been feeling inadequate to the task. Any task. For instance, sending the blog preview two (and then actually three) days late. I have lived long enough to know that sometimes feeling overwhelmed just comes with the life territory. And I’m leaning hard on my belief in a God who says we are fearfully and wonderfully made—we are enough. I’m trying to be enough.

You know what’s really hard to do when you’re not feeling enough? Generate the momentum needed to write, edit, and publish an essay. But with you my supportive audience, I figured I could just write about not feeling enough. Because maybe you’ve been there. Probably you’ve been there.

Sometimes enoughness gets tangled in my soul with worthiness. And that’s more of a spiritual issue. So I went to one of my spiritual heroes to help me think through this. In one of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations he writes:

Worthiness is not the issue; the issue is trust and surrender. As Thérèse of Lisieux said, “Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.” Let’s resolve this once and for all: You’re not worthy! None of us are. The worthiness road is a game of denial and pretend. We’re all saved by grace. We’re all being loved in spite of ourselves. But your worthiness has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the goodness of God.

And in another place Rohr says, “God does not love you because you are good. God loves you because God is good!” Amen and amen. I mean, that really takes a load off.

This is what I hold on to when I start debating whether I’ve done enough, whether I am enough. In my best moments, I remember that my worthiness has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the goodness of God.

Because I’ve always been, and valued, being observant, my go-to remedy when I’m feeling low is to take a close look at this magnificent world. Sometimes I take solace in the wondrous architecture of a spider web. Sometimes I marvel at the relentless persistence of the lemon verbena I’m trying to corral. Sometimes I realize I’m staring open-mouthed at the unexpected, unlikely kindness of strangers. Sometimes it’s patterns of light, or frolicking animals, or an inadvertently hilarious sign. I notice something that lifts me out of myself.

The most recent The Art of Noticing email was, in itself, a wondrous serendipity.  How Do You Reset?  tackled the question of what if, even when you’re a good noticer, you get off the rails? You stop noticing, or equally tragically, stop noticing that you’re noticing. Because, as Mr. Walker so aptly contends, the art of noticing is not just about noticing; the true art of noticing is about caring about what you’re noticing. A couple of his points:

• It’s about not only noticing what you notice, but pausing and dwelling on it, savoring it, honoring it, caring about it. Even if just for a few seconds.

• It’s about combating the instinct to push aside these small manifestations of life because they just seem less important than whatever Big Subject we’re ruminating on or reacting to.

Doing, or being, enough is an outward manifestation of whether we feel internally worthy. The art of noticing, for me, is the art of realigning my internal critical voice with the external critical voice of society, but even more importantly, subsuming those voices to the voice of the Eternal who says: my bringing you into existence verifies that you are worthy. You are my infinitely lovable child.

God is the fixed foot of my compass. God makes my circle just,/ and makes me end where I began.

I am more than enough. You, my friend, are more than enough.