A peculiar thing happens when people start earning a little more money. For a short while, life becomes easier. An overdue repair gets done. The weekly shop involves less mental arithmetic. Then, almost without anyone noticing, the definition of normal changes. What once felt comfortable begins to feel inadequate.
I have no quarrel with ambition. There are things I still want to make, places I would like to go and problems I would happily pay somebody else to deal with. Poverty is not romantic. The difficulty begins when a perfectly useful desire turns into a permanent measure of whether we are doing well as human beings.
Modern life provides an impressive collection of comparison machines. We can inspect other people’s kitchens, holidays, clothes and careers while sitting in our own perfectly serviceable living rooms. We know very little about the lives behind those photographs, but the photographs are quite enough to make us suspicious of our own.
The word enough deserves better treatment. It sounds like surrender when it might be a considered decision. Enough money to feel secure. Enough work to contribute without surrendering every evening. Enough possessions to enjoy them without spending half our lives organising, insuring and replacing them.
Of course, the answer changes with circumstances. A parent facing an uncertain income has a different calculation from somebody whose home is paid for. It would be insulting to tell the former to discover contentment and leave the bills unpaid. I am interested in people having the freedom to make the calculation for themselves.
Ask what you would actually do if you earned another twenty per cent. Then ask what you would have to give up to earn it. Sometimes the exchange is clearly worthwhile. Sometimes we are about to sell a large piece of life to purchase a marginal improvement in the equipment surrounding it.
We rarely stop because the culture around us has no particular interest in our stopping. Businesses need customers, careers reward ambition, and social media is happier showing us the next thing. None of these institutions is obliged to decide when we have enough. That decision belongs to us.
It is an uncomfortable decision because it removes a familiar excuse. If I no longer need the next promotion or purchase, I may have to ask what I want to do with the time I have been using to pursue it. That question is a good deal more personal.
I would like us to recover the ability to say, without embarrassment, “This is enough for me.” And then get on with the interesting business of living.