Just Enough

Will that be my epitaph?

Have I lived my life thus far doing just enough?

It feels like that at times.

When have I gone out on a limb? When have I really tried to turn the odds in my favour, taken a risk, or a series of risks to make more possible something I want?

Fence-sitter.

Hedge-better.

Diplomat.

Player of both sides.

Tight holder to the middle of the road.

I want to say these ring true when I say them about myself, but am I forcing it?

There was once this little mantra I used to repeat:

I have enough

I do enough

I am enough

I’m not sure where it came from. I’m not sure if that’s the right order of phrases. I’m not sure any of that matters.

Anyway, it’s a mantra and as they go it was helpful for a time because I spent so much of my time feeling quite the opposite

I’m lacking

I’m wasting

I’m falling short

I’m the horse who’s been brought to water but doesn’t drink.

There is no Granter-of-Wishes Fairy about to appear to bestow upon me all it is I want, or even think I want.

The direction I walk in has to be set by me. I have to generate the forces for that big burst of combustion energy.

But just enough doesn’t fuel a great fire. I should be a bonfire. An ever-burning inferno of flame and fire and heat and energy.

Instead I’m by the camp fire with two pieces of flint in my hand and I’m afraid I might burn or scratch my fingers.

I’m afraid.

Of change.

Of risk.

Of failure.

Of looking foolish.

Of trying and not succeeding.

Of doing something irrevocable, something I can’t come back from.

It is my eternal struggle.

I want to know what more there is to this, to me, yet I’m terrified of what may happen if I try some that scares me to the very core of my existence.

And so I’m left with the just enough to get by refrain coming and going whenever I feel opportunity, will, is or has passed me by.