What is enough?
What’s enough money? What’s enough time? What should we do after we have enough? What does it mean when we say “I’ve had enough” or “I don’t have enough?”
Dictionary Definition
e·nough [ i núf ]
1. adequate: as much as is needed
2. as much as is bearable: as much or as many as can be tolerated
3. to the necessary extent: to an extent that is as much as is needed
Jullien’s Definition
Enough is the point where the cost of getting one more outweighs the benefits of having one more.
Let’s say that I have an empty stomach and 5 apples. I eat the first apple and I shift from hungry to okay. I eat the second apple and I shift from okay to really good. I eat the third apple and I shift from really good to really full. I eat the fourth apple and I shift from really to full to I’m a fool. And I eat the fifth apple and I shift from I’m a fool to serious stomach ache.
The marginal benefit/cost of the each apple was as follows:
1st apple: +3 (a lot)
2nd apple: +1 (a little)
3rd apple: 0 (none)
4th apple: -1 (costing me comfort)
5th apple: -3 (costing me health)
So enough is the point just before the marginal benefit of having another apple turns into a marginal cost.
When we live in a society that tells us more is always better, this concept can apply to everything. How much is enough money? How much is enough time? There comes a point where earning more money can actually be costly to us. Money is supposed to be a means to an end, but sometimes it just becomes the end. When people say they want to be rich, they rarely have a number that defines that. Therefore, rich must be relative to what other people around them have and that becomes a never-ending race if your people group changes to richer and richer people as your financial wealth increases. What if you could earn $100,000/year and never miss an important event in your children’s life versus earning $200,000/year and missing almost all of them? Which one would you choose? What’s the cost of each path? If we defined enough up front, then we could work toward it and then enjoy any excess that comes beyond our enough point. But without defining enough, the game never ends.
In regards to time, how much time is enough to finish that project? When we don’t give a project enough time, that’s called procrastination. When we give a project too much time than it needs to be complete, that’s called perfectionism. For procrastinators, the marginal cost comes on the front end—it’s the time we spent watching TV that we know we should have dedicated to the the project. We can’t get that time back when the project is due, so it’s that time that actually cost us. For perfectionist, the marginal cost of every minute after the project is complete continues to increase. We think we’re making the project better when we aren’t or even worse, we’re making the project worse.
Defining enough money is straightforward. Determine the life you want to have and then do the research to cost it out. What if you could actually have your dream life on a $70,000 salary at a 40 hour/week job rather than a $150,000 salary at a all-hours-of-the-week job? More is not always better. We have to calculate the opportunity cost of more before making important decisions. Defining enough time and investment up front is little harder because our ability to judge the effort needed to get a certain result is skewed. When we hear of someone else doing something we want to do, we assume that it is easier than it actually is. It’s not a precise science, but there should a least be check points to evaluate if we’ve given enough.
I think I’ve written enough!
