Focus on Enough and crafting our ideal day

I exist as I am, that is enough

Walt Whitman

It’s 6:30am on Monday morning. We returned from our morning walk ten minutes go. Now, I have my coffee in hand and sit down to write, the blank post’s cursor staring at me. My usual writing setting has changed these past five weeks. I’m inside. Looking out the window, I see a family of plovers on our lawn, two adults and four babies. The babies stumble every few steps, peck into the ground, and are guided by the parents (or even nudged along) when they stop looking for food. Our grass has grown a bit, so the babies seem to take extra joy in running around some of the bigger weeds we have. I stay inside rather than sitting out in the patio so as not to disturb them. Soon enough, they’ll able to fly, and they’ll be gone.

It’s also Halloween today, so my coffee has the aroma of pumpkin spice. It’s a great scent and brings a smile to my face. It brings back a lot of good memories – both about the USA and previous trips, about my Halloween’s there, and about our own preparation here getting ready for tonight’s trick or treaters.

These are all simple things, and they all bring my a lot of joy. It’s nice to not be rushed, to look out the window and be distracted by the Plovers. To pause and take a sip of coffee and just lean back for a bit. Then I’ll focus back on the page and write.

These moments reinforce just how lucky we are. We have enough. Life is great. We might not be able to travel as frequently or for as long as we did in the past. There might not be as much ‘glamour.’ But we have enough, and that in of itself is enough for me for now. We are able to exercise each day. We eat well. We see family recently. We see friends. We climb. We watch movies and laugh. We go on hikes. Each day is a good one.

Live the life you want every day

I wrote about my ideal day earlier this year, which was before our move and marriage. It’s similar these days. We are living more of the life we want. Yes, I’d love to work less each day. We are building towards that. But we also have a lot to be excited about each day too.

It’s important to remember some of the Stoic teachings. Each day is a day closer to the day we will die. Therefore, we want to do what we can to live the life we want to live. It’s also about doing what we can now to ensure a better future (save, invest, eat well, move). Similarly, none of this is really up to us too. It’s all part of Fate and Nature. So we have to cherish each day, because we might not be here the next. Marcus Aurelius writes frequently to remind himself to kiss his children each night before bed, because they might not wake tomorrow. It’s a sobering reminder for all of us. Kiss your wife when you go to work, when you get home, and when it’s time for bed. Connect with your family and friends.

The structure of my ideal day is this:

• Move
• Write
• Coffee
• Deep work (ideally four hours, and my ideal deep work is to work with others to solve interesting problems, coach them, run workshops, be engaged in interesting dialogue)
• Time with others
• Good sleep

Enough is okay, and it is what we should strive for

It’s okay to be content with enough. We don’t need to hustle, or be maximally productive, or be getting after the next big thing. Yes, we need goals. Yes, we have to be aiming towards something. As Seneca wrote, no wind is favourable if you don’t know what port you are heading towards.

Yet we also need to cherish the quieter times and have space in our calendar to linger, to think, to connect, to live. That is where enough helps us. That we have made progress each day. That we can also enjoy our coffee and laugh with others without worry about being productive enough, thinking that we should be making another sales call instead.

Enough is looking out the window, coffee in hand, watching baby plovers play.