I have been wracked in recent days with the old question "Am I accomplishing 'enough' in my life?" that has plagued me throughout my adult years, or at least my adult years since I kicked the substance abuse habit of my early, quite depressed adulthood. In part it is due to what I wrote about several months ago -- about "am I 'enough', do I have the right to be alive if I'm not doing more", without 'more' being very well-defined. That's a product of the frightfully abusive childhood I experienced in my parent's home, of being told (as are many abused children) that I was 'stupid' and 'wrong' no matter what I did. But what I'm discussing today is a further aspect of that issue, and one that I realize may be a product of our American cultural assumptions, just as much as it is about my own psychological issues.
We live in a culture that is always wanting to know "what you've accomplished today". What you accomplished last year, or last month, or even yesterday is fine, and might even be quite laudable, but the question in the American psyche is "what are you going to do next?" We have an intensely future-oriented society, or at least have had such a society for the past 100 years or so. (Before 1900, or at least before 1800, the world was pretty stable, with cultural change being rather glacial. But technology and mass production of material goods has speeded up our perception of 'what can be accomplished'.) We are focused, as Robert Bly once observed about what women were looking for in male partners, with whether we are "human-doings vs. human beings". In our society, one is lauded and honored far more for economic output than for spiritual and inner emotional health. If an individual can be both a human-doing and a human being, that is viewed as 'icing on the cake'; but manifesting 'human-doing-ness' is considered sufficient, even if that same individual is a jerk or is shut down emotionally.
That is indeed regrettable, and represents a cultural blindsight that is profoundly contemptuous of the spiritual struggle for emotional health. I am a man who has never been very successful as a human-doing, as an economic unit that could adequately support a spouse, family, or even myself. This has been due, in the main, to the PTSD that I experienced as an adult, due to the child abuse, rape, and physical torture of which I was subject as a child. Surely I have done what it was 'supposed' to take to gain the implements of success: I earned a college degree and then went on to acquire two graduate degrees, in Public Administration and Social Work, and a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management. Yet that education, and the corresponding skill sets learned in the process of employment, have not translated into acquisition of a reasonable amount of economic resources. Quite to the contrary: upon the completion of each degree, for a short amount of time my income rose, then precipitously fell once funding for the positions ran out. Each time, I ended up once again making the kind of wages that I had been subject to as a high school graduate, if that much!
As a result of this inability to gain long-term financial stability -- and because I have been focused upon my recovery from the PTSD-related issues -- I have spent most of my energy on trying to become a competent, emotionally healthy human being. I'm not sure how successful I have been even in this arena, but my life has improved immeasurably in the emotional department over the past 30 years, whether or not I have reached the 'sufficient mental health' goal that I feel I should have achieved (however grandiose that may be given 'where I stated from'). Yet, even here, I'm never sure whether I've 'accomplished enough' in the emotional realm, or if my life has been or will ever be 'enough'.
The question is almost a spiritual one. Enough for what? For whom? By what criteria? According to what formulation or cultural expectation? Yet, it nags me constantly, like an itch that refuses to heal.
Ultimately, it is we alone who must define and decide if we are 'enough' or if we are 'accomplishing enough'. We can (and often do) try to meet other people's expectations, but those expectations are about their perceptions of this life, not ours and it is us who must live our own lives. We can (and again, often do) compare ourselves and our accomplishments to others around us, especially those in our educational and self-perceived economic 'class', but our lives are shaped by the conditions under which we have survived and prospered. And, as I noted in my previous article on success, it is us alone who must define 'success'. If we focus solely upon economic success, the acquisition of the 'economic goodies' of this society, then many, probably most of us will come up short (not just sexual abuse survivors, but frankly most of the society, other than the wealthy, business owners, or upper-level managers). Those 'goodies' are indeed nice to have. As Philip Slater pointed out years ago in Earthwalk, having money is just fine -- it allows us to have some great things in life and pays for delightful experiences, but the problem is with a lack of money. In this society, that lacking can cause immense psychological pain and economic misery.
So, am I doing 'enough'? Am I accomplishing enough? Well, probably not, but more importantly, I'm doing the best I can, which is the best any of us can do. If it's not enough, if in the long run I end up in a flop house motel (unlikely, but possible), if I live out my waning social security years in relative poverty, the larger questions will be -- for me, anyway -- what kind of person have I become? Am I emotionally fulfilled, even if my belly is sometimes empty? Have I gained a degree of self-satisfaction and recovery from the PTSD of my childhood? Am I helping others as best I can? Am I continuing to take positive steps toward my healing? Am I continuing to live my life in the most ethical manner that I know how to manifest? If those answers are 'yes', then I'm accomplishing enough, or at least accomplishing the most that I can. If not, then I need to continue the work -- which, in the larger picture, I have to do anyway. There's no release from the Journey of Life, except death. And Elizabeth Kubler-Ross called even that 'the final stage of growth'.
I am and will always be a 'student of life'. That's the best I can do. If it's not 'enough', then it won't ever be 'enough'. And I will go to my grave with a heavy heart. But I must note, in closing, that I have less of a heavy heart than I did 20 years ago, and far less of a heavy heart that I had 40 years ago. I've 'made emotional recovery progress' and, for me, that's the right direction to be headed, whatever the outcome.
