The Minimum Requirement Is Enough

There is a version of getting through the day that does not get nearly enough credit.

Not the version where everything goes well and you feel productive and capable and like yourself. That version gets plenty of credit. We celebrate that one. We share it, post it, hold it up as evidence that we are doing fine.

The version we do not talk about enough is the other one. The version where you got up. You handled the things that needed handling. You fed yourself something. You did not fall apart. You went to bed and you got up again the next morning and you did it again.

That version is not glamorous. It does not photograph well. It does not make for a compelling story at dinner. But it is the engine underneath everything else, and it deserves to be named as what it actually is: enough. Completely, fully, legitimately enough.

We have been sold the idea that just getting through the day is a lesser version of living. That it is temporary, something to push past on the way back to full speed. But for a lot of us, in a lot of seasons, just getting through the day is the whole job. And doing the whole job is not a consolation prize.

The minimum requirement is not the floor of what you should be doing. Some days it is the ceiling. And meeting the ceiling counts.

Come find us at thereturningproject.com

Inward. Onward. Go.