What is enough, and how will you know when you have it?
If you don’t regard what you have as enough, you will never be happy even if you rule the entire world.
Epicurus, Stoic philosopher
Like Alice, I went down a hole recently. YouTube recommendations took me down the Stoicism rabbit hole - quite the change from my usual tarot readings, 80s ballads and the Ink Master tattoo series. What the heck, I don’t even have a tattoo! One morning I clicked on a YouTube short from the ‘Daily Stoic’, which gives you bite-sized learnings from the classics of Stoic philosophy. YouTube shorts are like short reels on Instagram - they’re quick, snappy videos that are designed to keep you scrolling for more.
‘How To Find Enough With Stoicism’ talks about a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five). They were at a party hosted by a billionaire, where Vonnegut teases Heller that the billionaire made more money in a week than both his books would make in his lifetime.
“But I have something that he doesn’t have,” Heller says. “I have some idea of what enough is. I have enough.”
I replayed it over and over that morning. “If you don’t have an idea of what is enough, the goal posts will always shift.” Those words looped around in my head all day. At night. Then again the next day.
What is enough, and how will I know when I have it? Honestly, I didn't have an answer for that until I met up with my friend Travis recently.
Travis and I originally met in Perú back in 2019. He’s a Colorado native in his early thirties - we share a great love of food, the mountains and sometimes doing things simply to prove someone wrong because they said we couldn’t do it (this one I didn’t learn until much later on). We met while I was sharing my story at an unofficial Pecha Kucha event at Hotel Selina in Huaraz, where he was a guest at the time. He sat quietly at the edge of a couch, his smile and piercing blue eyes a tad distracting at the time.
We ended up teaching at Casa de Guías, as well as writing and editing TEFL resources together. For a few months we even lived in the same apartment. He was right there when I climbed my first mountain over 5,000m.a.s.l to celebrate my 36th birthday. Not only that, he surprised me and our guide, César with the most amazing feast on the moraine after we descended Mt. Mateo. You want to know if anything romantic ever happened between us, don’t you? No, Travis is simply that awesome. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t from a lack of trying from my end, but that’s a story for another day.
Wouldn’t you believe it, Travis had a two-year working holiday visa for New Zealand! Before he and I left Perú, we promised to meet up when we were both in New Zealand. He landed in the country a couple of months after I did. We kept in touch, though our plans to meet up never quite eventuated.
Then, the lockdown happened in March 2020. While I adjusted to working from home, Travis was living out of his van in the South Island and blowing up his Instagram with the most incredible alpine photos. As I wrapped myself in the cloak of chasing financial stability, he was working in Wanaka and doing exactly what I promised myself I would do when I came back from Perú.
Travis doesn’t post much on social media, but last week, I saw a photo of Mt. Taranaki on his Instagram. Woohoo, he finally made it to the North Island. All of a sudden he was in Mt. Maunganui, just an hour from Whakatāne. Did I want to meet up the next day? Hell yeah!
Travis and I enjoying the sunshine at McLaren Falls.
It’s berry season, so I bought some strawberries and blueberries on my way to the Mount. We were heading to McLaren Falls that afternoon so I thought it would be nice to have some snacks if we got hungry. Maybe I didn’t each enough breakfast that day because he never did get to taste the blueberries. Like, soz not soz. Who needs lollies (candy) when you have fresh blueberries, right?
It was a beautiful day and the plan was to check out the tracks at the park because it was our only chance to do a hike together. Since we were driving past the falls anyway, I decided to pull over so he could take some photos. After a bit of rock hopping, we both looked at each other and decided to skip the hike and go for a swim instead. We had a lot of catching up to do, and those few hours flew by. When Travis saw a guy jump off the bridge, he turned to me with bulging eyes. With that real wide-eyed, boy wonder expression spreading across his face. Of course he jumped, and yes, he survived.
The strawberries were sweet and delicious. I got a tan, and Travis, not so much haha. And just like that, we had to head home because I was going to a friend’s BBQ back in Whakatāne.
“Thanks for coming to see me. Do you want some money for petrol?” I laughed and told him there was no need. It was still cheaper than visiting him in the South Island. “I wish we got to do a hike together,” he replied. Me too. We hugged it out and that was that.
It would be easy to keep thinking about the ‘what ifs” and how much we could have done ‘if only’ I had made more of an effort to go to the South Island. To have communicated our plans better. To actually book that plane ticket. Yet, how I see it, those fews hours were the most intentional and mindful we had been in our friendship. That’s why for me, it was enough.
How can you have ‘enough’? It’s by setting goal posts for your happiness, because if you don’t, it will constantly shift and you’ll never be satisfied. You will always be trying to fill a void with things and people that don’t matter. ‘Enough’ is knowing your own value and each day choosing to be that in this world. Everything else is a bonus.
xo Ronna Grace
fivefootronna is Ronna Grace Funtelar - a thirtyish adventurer, sometimes poet and lover of cheese. She has a unique brand of optimism that is a combination of her great enthusiasm for life and cups of coffee during the day.