Enough, For Whom?

 

Blog 7 of the “Living in the Thoughtsphere” Series



“The planet is collapsing under too much, while millions still wait for just enough.”

That line, from the last blog, won’t leave me. It hovers—quiet but constant. Like a radio signal I can’t quite turn off.

Because here’s the truth: I don’t know what enough really means anymore.

I’ve seen people add three extra spoonfuls of rice to their plate without thinking. I’ve also seen people stretch one bowl across three children. I’ve lived in places where food was dumped without a glance, and places where tea leaves were reused, quietly, a third time. Enough, it turns out, is a moving target—cultural, circumstantial, deeply personal.

But what makes this moment different is that now, it’s also planetary.

When we talk about overconsumption—and I do—it’s easy to sound like we’re just saying: “We all need to take less.” But that’s not true. Not all of us have enough to take less from. Not the 800 million still going hungry. Not the 2.2 billion without safe water. Not the families who still go dark when the sun goes down because there’s no reliable electricity. Not the young person whose education or job prospects were decided before they even knew what the word “choice” meant.

And here’s the tension: meeting those needs—feeding people, electrifying villages, building sanitation, lifting lives—requires more. More energy. More concrete. More systems. More of the planet.

Meanwhile, those of us with more than enough are being asked to step back, to use less, to shrink our footprint. And honestly, we should. But it still lands hard—this unavoidable contradiction: How do we raise the bottom without overheating the Earth?

There’s no neat answer. Just a growing ache in the center of the chest.

And maybe that’s why so many of us are struggling quietly, trying to hold this contradiction in our bodies. On one side, the desperate urge to scale back, to make room. On the other, the unbearable thought that billions never got what we’re being asked to give up.

This isn’t just a policy dilemma. It’s an emotional one. A spiritual one.

And it’s also why so many of us lie awake, staring at the ceiling, flooded with a grief we don’t know how to name. That quiet dread? That overwhelm? That ache? That’s climate anxiety. And it’s not a flaw. It’s a form of care.

In the next blog, Living In and With Climate Anxiety, I’ll try to give that care some shape. I don’t have a cure. But I’ve learned a few things about how to sit with the sorrow—and still get up in the morning.

Maybe that’s where we begin.

I’d genuinely welcome your thoughts — whether you agree or disagree. But if you feel like sharing, I’m especially interested in your personal reflections… how you navigate these questions, if they matter to you. And if this resonates, feel free to share it with others who think or wonder along similar lines.

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