Good enough is good enough

Inner discontent. We all suffer from it occasionally, and for some of us, it never goes away. When you feel that you’re not good enough, or that life would be better if you were just a little more this or that… Journalist Mariska Jansen examines how to shed this feeling once and for all.

In the memoir Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert ends her marriage and says goodbye to her home to go off in search of something new. During her travels around the world, she makes peace with herself, with her grief, anger and shame. “I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you,” she tells herself on the beach of a tiny island in the Indonesian archipelago. Self-love also means accepting that you can’t do everything perfectly, that you should sometimes be happy with a “C” instead of the “B” or “A” you always want to get. Sometimes a busy day at work means you simply don’t have the energy that evening for a game with the kids or a good conversation with your partner. If we do one thing well, then we can do the rest well enough. Not everything can be perfect at the same time.