enough

In a recent interview with Fantastic Man, the writer Ocean Vuong talks about his experience with drug addiction. He says he liked uppers because “I just wanted more of what was here. I wanted more of the beautiful sunset...And it was this ability to be drawn into the world further. But it was not real, because the world should have already been enough.”

I feel like my journey these past few years has been the work of learning that I have always been enough. It is the work of being on my own side, of learning not to abandon myself in social situations for the approval of others, or not to give up or abandon myself in my professional work out of fear of failure. In times when I’m tempted to fall back into those patterns of abandonment, or numbing, I remember that there is a younger version of me, with a huge imagination, who needs me to believe in her. That younger self needs the gentle constancy of me showing up by her side every day, my presence proof that that she is enough exactly as she is, and she has always been enough.

And so I love Ocean’s words here, because isn’t this exactly what the earth needs in this moment? What if our work here on this earth is simply to not abandon her? Despite all the many reasons we’re tempted to do so, with all the pain and destruction of this moment, what if our work is simply to not look for escape—whether that be flights to space, or any of the myriad ways we numb—but instead to be on the earth’s side. What the earth needs is for us to believe in her. What we can do is show up on her side every day, our presence and our attention proof that the world is enough exactly as she is. She has always been enough.

This week, where can you choose presence, reminding yourself that the world as it is, is already enough?

See more of Ocean Vuong’s work at https://www.oceanvuong.com/.