2023-08-19

Or: I am good enough — I am not good enough. Unpacking both sides of this feels important to understanding our own and other's beliefs, and how to collaborate.

One of these twin narratives is common. Society, so we are led to understand, tells us that we are not enough. I haven't seen “Barbie” but apparently this is one of the themes — that in American society women have impossible expectations laid on them, so that they have great difficulty shaking off the sense that they are not enough, not good enough, not fully up to the challenge of being a perfect woman. And so, throughout so many reams of advice, we are all told that we are good enough. I do a search just now and come up with The Meaning of “I Am Enough” and Why Is It So Important which feels to me typical, maybe important for a lot of people, and maybe that includes my emotional parts.

We hear so many accounts of how children who did not feel enough acceptance of them as they were, and some of them are driven to excel, to succeed more and more, to try to please that parent who was not fully pleased with them. Or, it could have been a combination of parents, teachers, priests or other authority figures. It's a common theme in fiction and drama. On the other hand, it might just lead to straightforward depression; giving up the struggle; distractions and addictions to numb the pain; or in the worst cases, suicide.

The narrative here seems to be rooted in a false Darwinism, that life just is a struggle from which we cannot escape, so we are all doomed to compete, and only the strongest and the fittest find whatever supposedly good thing (or outcome) it is that we are socialised to want, to chase after. The surface narrative is thus that every individual has to compete to succeed. When confronted with the stark truth that only a minority get to “succeed”, that “success” is scarce, that giving one's best efforts in the circumstances doesn't automatically lead to this so-called “success”, the narrative may continue that it is just a matter of luck. In the most pernicious form, the luck is tied to genetics, or the luck of the situation you were born into, or something else that you can't change, and some groups of people are destined for success and others are not. Frightful.

If people see through this surface level competitive culture of scarcity, then a second level of healing narrative comes into play: society itself has got sick from taking on these cultural expectations; we need to recognise that we are actually enough, we are good enough; and therefore we must tell ourselves that every day, convince ourselves that what is, is good enough, there is no need to struggle, just be accepted. If you are not accepted by other people just as you are, perhaps your religion may offer the alternative that God (or whoever) accepts you just as you are, “failures” and all.

Is this really what is good for us, and for the world, just like that? In my experience, religions have more nuance than that. To move from healing narrative to the closely related salvific narrative,¹⁾ there is much written about what it takes to be “saved”, or how people earn “a place in heaven”. In the tradition I am most familiar with, it is not only that we are loved by God, but also that we are not worthy in ourselves, and need to demonstrate our salvation, with the help of the Spirit, by doing God's will, God's works, in the world here and now. However, we are not judged by the number or quality of our works. That would throw us back into a form of competition. How many writers through the ages have dealt with this is fascinates me.

While the potential bad consequences of a simple “I'm not good enough” belief are clear, it's important to me to bring in the other side of the story. The firm belief that “I am good enough as I am” can also lead to serious problems. Narcissism can be pathological and destructive. Much is written about the problems of “entitlement”, which people relate to narcissism.

But to me the most serious problem with “I am good enough” (as I am) is that it works against any incentive to change and grow. Not only “I am not enough” but also “I am enough” can too easily be taken from the perspective of a “fixed mindset” (using the terminology of Carol Dweck). Dweck's work seems to me to have its own healing narrative: the problem with people is fixed mindset; people need to develop a growth mindset; at least we can take care to bring up our children with a growth mindset. As Dweck focuses on children, I haven't seen studies of how hard is it for an adult to change from a fixed to a growth mindset. I wonder.

The incentive to change, here, covers both the incentive to change oneself and to change the world. Fixed mindsets seem to cross over between individual and society. This also relates to the subject-object theory of Robert Kegan: “being” something feels less changeable than “having” something.

I like to tell people of my experience of doing a PhD, which I'm sure is common. One starts off, perhaps prompted by one's previous academic successes, expecting to do some really significant research — something that makes a big impact. And while teams can indeed have a big impact, it is vary rare for a single individual to have a big impact in any academic field, let alone in the wider world. And PhD research is by necessity an individual endeavour, because a doctorate is awarded for the work of that individual, not just for the work of a team in which one happens to be a part.

So, after three years (or more) one ends up feeling something like “I was only able to manage a small amount of what I had imagined”. And in my experience (from both ends) one of the things that the PhD viva examination tests is intellectual humility.²⁾ Examiners sometimes invite a PhD candidate to give their opinion on a matter related, but not central, to their dissertation. The answer we're looking for is something like “that's not my area of expertise, I can only speculate, only give a tentative personal opinion, and I know this is not authoritative”, perhaps adding “and my thesis doesn't depend on the answer”. This level of realistic humility should be, in my opinion, one of the requirements for awarding a PhD: to know the limits of one's knowledge; to know where one does not know, and to be both able and willing to admit that.

So, if you do good research, you may be good enough to earn a PhD; but equally you alone are certainly not enough to solve the genuinely complex problems that beset the world.

Which brings me to the main point here. None of us as individuals can solve the complex, “wicked” problems of the world. To contribute to them, it seems to me, needs the same kind of qualities as to work with others generally, and the same to live with others, in general. We need a judicious combination of “I am enough” and “I am not enough”. Here are a few statements (just mine) that I imagine together start to represent that combination.

• I am as worthy as anyone else of respect.
• I am enough, I have enough, to grow into contributing in my own way to making the world a better place.
• The more complex the situation, the less I am enough to cope with it alone.
• I am not enough in myself to be able to know how I can grow best into my own fulness.
• My fulfilment matters just as much as (and no more than) the fulfilment of others.
• I have only a little knowledge of what will fulfil others, which could easily be mistaken.
• The deepest and most important parts of life are not just about me, they are about us. All of us. My worldview, my mindset, alone is unable to represent all of us. It is not enough.
• I am enough to be one of us, and I can grow into being even more one of us, or one of us at an even wider scale, if that is my calling.

And about the necessity for company on the journey, I can think of no better source than Parker Palmer…³⁾

[…] two basic beliefs. First, that we have an inner teacher whose guidance is more reliable than anything we can get from a doctrine, ideology, collective belief system, institution, or leader. Second, we all need other people to invite, amplify, and help us discern the inner teacher's voice for at least three reasons:

• The journey toward inner truth is too taxing to be made solo: lacking support, the solitary traveler soon becomes weary or fearful and is likely to quit the road.

• The path is too deeply hidden to be traveled without company: finding our way involves clues that are subtle and sometimes misleading, requiring the kind of discernment that can happen only in dialogue.

• The destination is too daunting to be achieved alone: we need community to find the courage to venture into the alien lands to which the inner teacher may call us.

• healing narrative
• collective ikigai