Kurt Vonnegut on “Having Enough.”

A few years ago, I was giving a talk on ego. I tried explaining that one of its evils is that it makes us think that achievement can bring us meaning and happiness. However, when it is in effect, it does the opposite.

I was quickly shut down by a few in the crowd. I couldn’t get my points through. I wanted to tell them that I knew about this lesson first-hand.

I’ve learned that we are not our achievements, rather we are who we become and how we feel when we achieve things. We quickly get bored with the millions, the titles, the mountains we scale, the races we ran if they don’t give us a feeling of contentment.

There is a big game being played out in the universe and we are just a minute part of it. There is a mysterious power that guides us to many of our achievements and we are only observers meant to experience those journeys. Nonetheless, the ego in us prevents us from accepting this reasoning.

Most of us think we are what we do or what we achieve. Our self-worth is linked to goals, achievements, and things. That kind of thinking forces us into an unfulfilled lifestyle which does not only lack meaning but also has no endpoint.

In continually replacing old preoccupations with new ones, the wheel keeps going round and round. We run fast but always in the same direction. We finally realize that we can never do enough to satisfy our inner hamster. That fulfillment can only come from within.

Suddenly, flying business class isn’t enough; the first-class option is deemed sexier. The double room at a five-star hotel becomes okay but wouldn’t a suite at the new six-star hotel make us even happier? Or we convince ourselves that having the new Tumi bag is now a necessity.

But what does it really mean to “have enough?”

There is no better answer than the one inherently given by Kurt Vonnegut in the poem below he wrote for the New Yorker in May of 2005

Joe Heller

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer

now dead,

and I were at a party given by a billionaire

on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel

to know that our host only yesterday

may have made more money

than your novel ‘Catch-22’

has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad! Rest in peace!”

–Kurt Vonnegut (The New Yorker, May 16, 2005)

The poem describes a party where two of the most famous writers of their generation — Heller and Vonnegut — attended in a billionaire’s house. Heller says to Vonnegut that he has something that the billionaire can never have, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

These words of wisdom provide us with a frame that can help us be at peace with ourselves and to treat those around us with affection and respect.

When we really love ourselves, we know that we are enough. And in knowing that we are enough, we bring our best selves forward and serve those around us with kindness and humility.