The question of enough has been haunting me for a while now. Most of my time has been spent around the issue of materialism, as I’ve wrestled with the specific question, “What is enough stuff?” To be sure, this is an important question in our day and age of excess and entitlement. It’s a question that I’m reminded of every year around this time, as college students move out of the dorms and leave dumpsters piled high with perfectly functional goods that they just don’t feel like taking home with them. Even with the green shift, we live in a disposable culture. Perhaps this is the inherent contradiction of the Millenials: desiring to save the world, but not wanting to be inconvenienced by budgeting or packing light.
On one hand, packing light and keeping the enough stuff threshold is incredibly freeing: there’s less to worry about, less to remember, less to store. But the other hand, it’s incredibly difficult. Keeping to a budget is a discipline not easily mastered but many of us free spirits. Giving up a shirt that I really like but haven’t worn in the past year is strangely personally painful.
Besides stuff, this issue of enough extends into just about every part of life. Most of the college students I know are asking questions like, “What is enough study and preparation?” and “What is enough community?” and “What is enough sex?” (that’s a blog post unto itself). Professors have to grapple with questions of “What research is enough?” and “What publishing is enough?” Friends in every profession wrestle similarly.
The enough question hit me in a new way today as I read my favorite blogger, Seth Godin. The post I read provoked a new question: “What is enough generosity?”
This is difficult in its own way. Followers of Jesus squirm around the issues of no good actions meriting more or less of God’s favor, and yet what we do does matter. Jesus’ call for us to follow him asks for our whole lives, but how do we quantify? It’s easy to say that all my money is God’s anyway and thus easy to give away, but that’s a nice generality and not as helpful in making a specific choice. This evening I’ve been pausing to honestly reflect on how I avoid known needs, on where I casually walk around places I know I’ll be asked to help.
This is a question for my own generosity, and it is a question I face as I am the one doing the asking for the generosity of others (as a person who fundraises a full budget for a religious non-profit). As I ask for financial partnership, what does that do to those I ask, as they are on their own journey of navigating enough in generosity. I want to invite greater generosity, not subtly introduce either arrogance or numbness. I’m not sure there’s an answer to this, just something for those of us in fundraising or sales to be conscious of.
What do you think? Where is enough for you? What is your journey?
Posted in South Central PA
Tags: College, Enough, Millenial, Money, Seth Godin