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The Grace of Enough
Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller on enoughness
I have an illness. Yes, I call it an illness, not a feeling. Although some might consider it a feeling, I suppose.
Psychologists have names for it: low self-worth, chronic shame, perfectionism, impostor phenomenon, contingent self-worth. I’m leaning toward contingent self-worth, the belief that my value depends on what I accomplish, how others see me, or how much I do for those around me.
It’s another way to say I’m not enough. Who I am, was, is, and never will be enough.
Then there was retirement, the fires, the cancer. They stripped away every remnant of my identity and security, and, well, I had nothing. And the not-enoughness feeling was for real.
Yep, I had tied my identity to externals. Not unusual for most of us.
Recently, while reading The Marginalian, I stumbled upon Kurt Vonnegut’s poem about his friend Joseph Heller. In it, Vonnegut describes attending a party given by a billionaire who made more money in a single day than Heller’s Catch-22 had earned in its entire history, prompting a response from Heller that offers a striking antidote to our obsession with status:
JOE HELLER
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I…
