I started to work out my own perspective on “enough”:

What is it that makes it possible to do the work that is of highest value to others and one’s central purpose in life? It may appear—to others, sometimes even to oneself—trivial, irrelevant, indulgent, pointless, distracted, or any of those other pejoratives with which the quantifiable beats down the unquantifiable.

From this new perspective, it becomes possible to see that preparing nutritious meals for your children might matter as much as anything could ever matter, even if you won’t be winning any cooking awards; or that your novel’s worth writing if it moves or entertains a handful of your contemporaries, even though you know you’re no Tolstoy. Or that vi

the man lived. Not nearly enough, but not insufficiently. He found his life’s work thrice: as an activist; as a chef; and as a painter. He understood himself as something larger than himself: His mighty, extended family of origin; his beloved native land and its people. He found love and became part of a new extended family, and a new people. He ha