Good AND enough.

In my junior year of high school, my class advisor sent my entire class an email every Monday entitled “Monday Motivation.” This particular Monday, she was reviewing the idea of “good enough” goals, in which you should be getting something done amid business and stress, because that victory is better than doing nothing at all that day. After she explained goals such as going for a walk instead of shooting for a complicated workout, or writing 100 words to get a start on a much longer article, she ended the email with the following words:

You are all good. And enough.

That period is one small dot, simply separating one sentence from another. And yet, I have thought about that specific period every single day for the past three years. Brene Brown often makes the distinction between human doing and human being. I am a human being, and I am both good and enough, even when I am not checking off goals. When I mean to write an entire paper draft today and all I get done is two paragraphs, I am not reduced to the worth of those two paragraphs. I’m not even reduced to the worth of completing the whole paper. I was already good and enough before I sat down to work on the assignment, and I will continue to be good and enough when the assignment is done.

This truth does not negate my accomplishments or efforts. It encourages a world in which the worth of a human being is not determined by their grades, their work, their appearance, or anything others have to say about them. That is the kind of world I want to live in.

PS: Her name is Mrs. Kris, and you can read more of her work on PBS or through the LifeCompass Institute.