Are you good enough? ... Are you good?

 

 Why is it so common for people to think they are not good enough?

What is enough? Why is there a qualifier there?

Are you good? Are you a good person? Are you doing good? Are you doing okay? That's enough.

Are you good enough? Good enough for what? Good enough to do what? What do you need to be good enough for?

 

Enough. What is enough? Nobody knows what we're supposed to be enough for.

But somehow quite a few people manage to think they're not good enough.

SO what do people do? Sometimes.. 

This is what I am, people say, these are the labels I identify with. This showcases an aspect of my personality, that shows a specific quality of mine, and this other thing lets you know what I like to do. 

This is well and good. Communities are built that way. 

The issue is - as with many things - a lack of moderation. (this is also my take on food and nourishment as a whole, but that's a topic for another day)

When people start to believe that they need to belong to some sort of in-group or identity or label or tag for whatever reason - at that point, what is with the emphasis on nomenclature? what is with making it a reason to dismiss people without knowing them at?

(obligatory disclaimer: i am not saying we should ignore red flags or put up with terrible people) 

With so many differentiators how do we expect to connect with each other on any level? 

Putting so many labels and those labels keep getting more and more specific and then you're just putting yourself in a neatly labeled box so people can choose how to identify with you, and whether enough of your labels match enough of their labels. Except you've put so many labels on your box that you're the only person left who fits. You are not a thing to be put in a box and labeled. 

Labels are comforting to an extent. No doubt about it. It provides a sense of support and community to many. I just feel like once people have grown from that support, they sometimes find that those labels smooth out the "texture", so to speak. And may begin to feel somewhat constricting. 

The divisive, or ironically, homogenizing nature of labels aside, good enough doesn't really mean anything at all to any of us because good enough hinges on a comparative - and hence external - dependency. That's not really necessary for anyone to cater to, in my opinion.

So maybe sometimes..

We could try to be good - in whatever way we know good to mean on a deeper level. Individually.

We could stop trying to be nebulously good enough, and instead try to do good things and feel good.

You cannot change the world. But you can change how you talk to yourself. 

--

as with many of my posts, there are my (often stream-of-consciousness) thoughts about aspects of broader topics I'm interested in