What is enough?
A life of joy or one of accolades?
A life that you define as great or one defined by others?
Is it enough to go to sleep with a smile on your face or do you need to have made an impact on someone else or the world at large?
These are questions that I’ve been pondering over the past few months as I’ve been finding my rhythm here in the mountains of Canada. I hadn’t quite realised how London had infected me or perhaps how much I’d bought into the norms of a London life.
Busyness. Action. Purpose.
I defined myself by those three things that when they have been taken away I’ve had to ask myself – who am I without them?
In London I spent a lot of time with amazing people doing amazing things or people who were in the planning stages of doing amazing things. For me making a difference or helping others to make a difference was big motivation. It was how I defined myself, in a way. And then I come to small town Canada where the focus of those I’ve met isn’t on making a difference, it’s on living an amazing and joy-filled life. It’s about cycling or or skiing or hiking any moment they can. It’s about living a fabulously content life doing things they love in the great outdoors.
And so I’ve asked myself many times
Is living a content life ENOUGH?
Do I need to be helping people make a difference?
Do I need to be making a difference myself?
Do I need to be actively sharing my journey with others?
I’ve gone forward and back on it. Round and round.
I’m still in the process of unravelling and finding non-London Robyn. I’m still feeling my way into acknowledging great days where actually nothing has to happen! I’m learning to soak up and appreciate all that is around me and feel the enough-ness of contentedness. But there are still days where I feel the pull of MORE, of having a helping hand in the purpose of others or perhaps connecting to a deeper purpose in me.
I have to laugh that living a joy-filled life doesn’t feel like enough for me. I laugh that being content feels too shallow. Because a part of me knows that it is TOTALLY enough, but that hasn’t quite sunk into my deeper being, my deeper knowing. It seems I’m still on the journey to embracing contentedness. I’m learning to relish my days at work and my evenings filled with writing, reading, talking with friends, going for walks, stretching my body, watching the fire, cooking dinner, making soups, baking cakes and doing what feels good to me. I’m learning to step out of the action and busy clothes I’ve been wearing for years and settle into the here and now of a simple life. I’m still finding who Robyn is here in the beautiful mountains of British Columbia. I’m trying to step away from the questioning and connect to that knowing.
And I’m intrigued – do you feel living a content life is enough or are you looking for MORE?