THREE

How Much Is Enough?

Most people believe that they expend just the right amount of energy for whatever it is they are doing. If you are like me, however, when the phone rings not only do you try to pick it up immediately but you also grip it far harder than you need to. The verb that is generally used regarding phones is “cradle,” but that is rarely what people do with them. The person at the other end is not going to give up after just a couple of rings, so you don’t have to act as though the call is an emergency. When you pick up the receiver, notice how tightly you are holding it and see if you can relax. Whatever tension there is in your hand will communicate itself to the rest of your body and vice versa, because the two parts are physically connected. If you can relax the muscles in your hand, that release will be felt throughout your body. What a relief. Enlightenment begins with relaxation. The hint is right there in the word itself: en-lighten-ment.

Hardly anyone handles a tool with just the right amount of energy. When you want to sweep the floor, all you need is the minimum amount of energy to stop the broom from falling out of your hand. The broom does not need to be pushed or pulled across the surface of the floor. There is a natural wide and gentle movement from the shoulder, in which just the tips of the bristles whisper across the wood catching any dust and transporting it into your little pile. This is a very different activity from the one we normally engage in.

Observe what you do when you open a door. We tend to put about 100 percent more force into every movement than we need. Only a very small amount of energy is needed to turn the handle of the door and push it open. That is the way the door handle and the door hinges are designed. Experiment with actions like these to see how little force is really needed. It will be a revelation. Each time we relinquish this effort, we will be able to save strength and energy for doing something else. One of the reasons we all get so tired and run out of energy is that we usually expend far more than we need at any given moment.

Much of this added tension comes about because we are not content to simply perform actions. We add into them layers of feeling and desire that are counterproductive, and we often start off with the wrong aim, so it is a good idea to look for your intention and see if you can recognize it at the same time as you check on the level of effort you are putting into everything.

Recently I was home visiting my eighty-eight-year-old mother and discovered that everything I touched in the kitchen was grimy and greasy. As I scrubbed away I was seething over the fact that the person who was being paid to do this job on a regular basis was either lazy, unskilled, or in dire need of glasses. At times I became so concentrated on my resentment that I lost track of the cleaning.

I was already an adult when I started to learn how to play the piano, and I found it inordinately difficult. At the end of my lesson, I would be wiped out for the rest of the evening. The man I worked for at the time found this very puzzling because to him playing the piano was a real joy (and this is certainly what I had hoped for, too). I explained to him that it was draining because I made so many mistakes and I saw this as failure. I wanted so much to get it right. He pointed out to me that if I could play perfectly, I would have no more need of instruction. My teacher did not expect me to get everything right, so why should I? It was then that I realized that I had been putting my effort into the trying—trying to get the notes right. But it was misguided nonetheless. I had two desires operating. One was to perform perfectly and the other to make music. The former was stronger than the latter. I had put the cart before the horse.

If you can catch a glimpse of your desires and let go of them, then you can devote yourself completely to whatever it is you want to do so that your effort is untrammeled—which brings to mind the word impedimenta, the Latin for “baggage.” We need to surrender any unnecessary baggage so that we can travel lightly.

This may be a rather revolutionary concept to many people in the United States, but it is worth experimenting with. When you sit down to a meal, help yourself to no more than you are certain you can eat. You can always have more; once something is on your plate, however, it tends to get thrown out if you don’t finish it. I am not sure why so many of us put so much food on our plates. It can’t be that we fear starvation—not in this generation and in this country. Even after almost forty years in New York City, I am uncomfortable with the amount of food restaurants serve. Meal after meal and day after day, they discard our leftovers. Has it never occurred to them that we might prefer to eat less, pay less, and weigh less?

My parents were scrupulously honest and upright, but I was always troubled by one of my mother’s quirks. When she ate at restaurants that sported ashtrays with their names emblazoned on them, she would often bring one home with her. Over and over again I would say, “Darling, that’s stealing.”

“No, it’s not,” she would retort. “It’s ashtrays. Restaurants expect you to take them home. This is their way of advertising.” On reflection, the explanation seemed a reasonable one, but it left me with a certain degree of uneasiness.

I think there were two aspects of it that did not sit well with me. One was the principle of not taking something that doesn’t belong to you and is not freely offered (the maître d’ hadn’t pressed an ashtray into her hands as she left). The other was that people tend to help themselves to whatever is available, even if it is something they don’t need. If I remember rightly, my mother had given up smoking years earlier and so had absolutely no use for all those ashtrays. She just found the concept of free stuff irresistible.

A few weeks ago I was passing one of the new MetroCard-dispensing machines at a subway station. Out of the corner of my eye I watched a man take his card and walk away, forgetting to pick up his change. The machine kept blinking its message about the change, and the coins lay in the slot beneath. I experienced a momentary tug toward the money, but then a little voice said, “That money isn’t yours. And even if the man doesn’t come back to claim it, there are other people who could really use it. You don’t actually need it.” I admitted this was true and walked on.

Many people treat life like a smorgasbord. They pile their plates high with a huge assortment of delicacies, simply because the food or whatever is available. Their selection and the amount of it they take bear no relation to their need at the moment. I am reminded of the ad that the Archer Daniels Midland Company ran on PBS. It said that there is no shortage of food in the world: The problem is not the food; it is the politics. So the reason that there often doesn’t seem to be enough of anything to go around is often a question of inappropriate appropriation or hogging it.

Some years ago I visited an old high-school friend in Washington, D.C., and she threw a party for me. Since her husband worked for the World Bank and she was connected to American University, almost all the guests moved in these circles, both of which were unfamiliar to me. Everyone I encountered seemed to be studying at night, in addition to working during the day. Eventually someone asked me what courses I was taking. I explained that I worked in publishing and so there was not any need to take courses. I found the question very puzzling.

“But if you learned something new, you could get promoted or move on to a better job,” the woman said.

“You can’t learn publishing in a class,” I said. “You just have to plunge in and learn as you go. I have been doing this for many years, and I know how to do it. I love what I do and I don’t want to do anything else or work anywhere else, so what would be the point of taking classes?” Neither of us could comprehend the other’s point of view. We were like two ships passing in the night. All these people were on a restless search for something more or something else.

A slogan familiar to many people is “Less is more,” and once I saw the beauty of it in operation, I espoused it completely. But lately I have begun to detect a basic fallacy in it. In this consumer society, we have been conditioned to believe that more is always better. (I once thought of getting in touch with Macy’s to offer them what I thought would be the perfect slogan: “Macy’s has more.”) Now I realize that I don’t want more. I simply want enough. Although “Less is more” sounds as though it is a way of cutting back, of returning to simplicity, it contains the subtle message that if you have less, you will receive more. It is still a promise that more is better.

I went to Havana in 1997 and saw the conditions under which the Cubans lived because of the U.S. embargo. This was the first time I understood that “Less is more” doesn’t apply to every situation. The people I met had hardly anything, but they were cheerful and not resentful. Less isn’t more when you don’t have very much; however, the Cubans did have just enough to keep going, and so it was enough. It is the same way with the rest of us. Less doesn’t necessarily have to be more. We simply need to have whatever is sufficient to deal with the situation we find ourselves in. So I propose that we change the adage to “Less is enough.” What do you think?

The whole question of why our lives seem so unsatisfying needs close examination. Why is it that our experiences or possessions never seem to bring us lasting happiness or a sense of completion? We always want something more, and it is always eluding us. Not only do we want to hold on to what we already have but we also want to acquire as much more as we can. I think of possessions as possessing me rather than vice versa. If you own something, then you are responsible for taking care of it and are continually worrying that it might get harmed or you might lose it.

We try to fill the vacuum that we believe to be inside us, but we need to remember that we didn’t come into this life to shop, to chalk up experiences, to amass objects we can’t take with us when we go, or even to make a lot of money.

In truth, it is not the number and diversity of our possessions that are the problem but our attachment to them. When the attachment grows thin and the filament breaks, then we discover that we do not really want so much anymore. What we need to relinquish, therefore, is our attachment to possessions and experiences, not the things themselves. The freedom we are all seeking is freedom from the fear of losing what we believe we own.

Among the notes I have kept over the years is a small scrap of paper on which I typed out a passage from a book by Robert Pilpel, entitled Between Eternities. It speaks with extraordinary clarity on this whole matter:

You wonder about the next life because this life’s not enough for you. And this life’s not enough for you because you’re not living it but thinking about it.

I thought that there had to be more to life than being alive and I resolved never to be satisfied with my existence until that something more, whatever it was, had been savored to the full. I felt, moreover, that once my great goal had been achieved I would be prepared to die. …

Why are we afraid of death? Surely it is not because the process of dying is painful—because the process of living is infinitely more so. And we don’t fear living—at least, not as much as we fear dying. We are afraid to die because we are not ready. Does death stand for our final failure to achieve the unattainable? And if it does, what then does the unattainable stand for? Would I want it so much if I knew what it was?

When I think back to what I believed would be the most memorable moments in my life—confirmation, the first time I made love, my wedding ceremony, the birth of my son—I remember that each time I had expected to feel different in some way. I anticipated that something in me would be transformed forever. But nothing like that ever happened, and the next day it was always recognizably the same me who woke up in the morning.

Why is it that we yearn to be more or other than we are? It so rarely occurs to us that what we are looking for may be—indeed, always is—already within us, simply undiscovered.