What a $1 Costco hot dog can teach us about 'What is enough'?
The 3 factors that actually go into the experience of feeling "enough"
Hi friends,
I was recently at my 15th year business school reunion at Harvard, and I was struck the 2 questions most on my classmates’ minds were: Have I achieved enough? and Have I earned enough?
These questions probably seem ridiculous for such a privileged group. (…cue the world’s smallest violin!)
But, social comparison is a universal phenomenon. We’re social creatures, and when we don’t know what to do or feel uncertain, we often follow what other people do — especially other people who are similar to us.
When we originally lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, it made sense to follow others’ cues.
More often than not, it helped us stay safe and feel a sense of belonging. If we kept up with the Jones’ by gathering enough food and having enough kids to keep the tribe going, life would probably go on. And so evolution shaped our nervous systems to feel regulated when we’re mirroring — or even outdoing — others in our tribe. We relax, and our bodies feel ‘Ah, all is well.’
The challenge is when our “tribe” is composed of an unrealistic group — whether it’s people from a very select group, a group that’s not like us because we’re a minority, or the most beautiful …successful … or …(fill in the blank) on social media. Our nervous system hasn’t evolved to know how to handle such intense social comparison, and it kicks up our reptile brain’s survival fears.
Our nervous system evolved over millennia to look for cues of safety — signals that we’re okay, signs that we belong.
In unrealistic tribes, the problem is there’s never a “finish line” — an all clear signal that tells us we’ve made it, that we’ve arrived in life! There’s no billboard with bright flashing lights reassuring us that we’re accomplished enough, that we’re wealthy enough, or that we’re X enough so that our nervous system feels like it’s safe for us to rest.
Instead, there’s only a constantly moving “social comparison line”. And when that line is impossibly high, it triggers fears we developed as pack animals that if we don’t belong and get cast out from our tribe, we might have to fend off hungry lions alone.
So not measuring up — to the most ancient part of our brain — literally makes us feel like death might be lurking around the corner. And it’s understandable how the default setting in our nervous system is to focus on how we’re falling short. It’s what helped keep our ancestors alive long enough that we could be here today! In many ways, it’s a beautiful expression of life’s inherent resilience.
But, this mismatch between the evolution of our nervous system and the shape of modern society is perhaps one reason why we live in an age with such rampant anxiety, depression, and loneliness. It’s why we keep hustling and trying to accumulate more — wondering at the end of every day whether we’ve done enough — because our bodies haven’t registered that we’re actually safe.
So, how do we signal to our nervous systems that we have enough? …Or more existentially, that we are enough?
Because “enough” is perhaps the urgent question we’re grappling with collectively in an unstable world struggling with how to live with seemingly scarce resources.
Enough, I realize after spending time with my business school classmates, isn’t solved just with a number ($s, followers, a target weight on the bathroom scale).
Enough is an experience of safety.
And from my experience, and those of leaders I coach, there are 3 key factors that contribute to our perception and experience of safety:
1. Community
I was recently talking with my dear friend and fellow business school classmate H. about this question of enough, and she said,
“10 years ago when I was thinking about quitting my stable corporate job — which felt very safe, but psychologically crushing — I was afraid to leave. No one I knew was doing their own independent thing.”
That is, she didn’t yet have a tribe or role models that made this shift feel safe. It was as if her nervous system said, “Why leave this tribe when you don’t know where your next tribe is?!”
2. External Cues of Safety
“But”, she went on,
“One day while standing on the checkout line at Costco, I looked up. I saw they were selling hot dogs for $1. And it was then that I realized that I would always be able to eat.
It felt like a revelation, and a full-body sigh of relief!”
Even if she didn’t yet know where her next tribe was, the $1 hot dog was a mundane cue of safety! Her nervous system wanted to make sure she’d never go hungry, and when it registered that she’d be okay, her whole body relaxed. Her body shifted from the vigilance of ‘fight/flight’ into the openness of ‘rest/digest’.
And not long after this hot dog revelation at Costco, she gave notice to her company that she was going to quit.
3. Internal Cues of Safety & Aliveness
Now external cues are very helpful — especially when they’re right in front of us like a hot dog sign. But, sometimes external cues simply aren’t available or obvious.
So, I’ve found that a more reliable way to help my nervous system change states is to learn to attune to cues of safety inside myself. Learning to look for and cultivate the signal that ‘all is well’ within my own body — even if things feel uncertain outside of me — has been one of the most profound skills I’ve ever developed.
It’s a skill that I wish came with the owner’s manual to everyone’s nervous system. And with this way of attuning to my own inner experience, I know that I can always come to rest in the experience of “enough” in my own body.
. . . which is helpful since I’d rather not eat hot dogs for the rest of my life!
I’m curious, what cues of safety might be around you that you’re not currently consciously aware of? Drop a note in the comments below!
If you’d like to go deeper in the process of learning to find internal cues of safety, below is a guided meditation practice, along with links to 3 resources that have profoundly changed how I experience “enough”…
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