What happens when you struggle to make a decision about what to keep, what to throw away, and where to put it all? Or when you have so much stuff that you decide to buy a bigger house or rent a storage unit? Could it be when you have enough?

However, even then, you find that you continue to accumulate more and more.

You’re still hungry for more, much more. Something inside scolds you and convinces you that having it will definitely bring you more joy or happiness in life.

But then, when is enough, enough?

It’s a question I asked myself, when I had my spiritual awakening years ago. It was a huge turning point in my life to awaken to a vast new world, an inner world that, up to that point, I had largely ignored or discredited.

My life was busy with the outside world, the only one I thought existed. Busy making a living and raising a child. Busy building a career and filling our house with stuff.

But then this vast new world called me to know more, learn more and understand what it was all about, and I dove in with delight. I read books, took classes, did spiritual quests, and studied to become a spiritual practitioner.

There was so much to learn and know and I wanted it all.

That is, UNTIL I get to the ENOUGH place. A place where there is no room for one more thing, not even for one more bite.

I was saturated with overwhelm. He was running around with everything.

It was then that a wise spiritual practitioner told me: “Joan, you need to drink a little!”

He explained that it was like a cup of tea in which he was pouring more and more into the cup until it overflowed into the saucer, onto the table, and then onto the floor. All that knowledge had spilled over. And yet I kept pouring more.

It was time, instead, to USE IT, LIVE IT, EXPERIENCE IT. Not just push to accumulate more and more. It was time for him to drink a little!

And that’s what we tend to do with our stuff. We pour more and more into our lives and homes, without realizing or paying attention to its capacity, well beyond the brim… and it overflows!

Visually, it makes sense with a cup or a glass: we watch the glass as it fills and stop when it reaches the brim. We know that if we continue to pour, we will have a mess to clean up.

However, in the current “more is better” momentum, we continue to buy and acquire even more. We are like a robot, programmed for MORE, MORE, MORE!

“And what happens when we have more? We are not satisfied… It is impossible to satisfy that hunger for more, because our culture is not satisfied with what we have, but is oriented towards wanting more. It is consumerism, and it is the official religion of the industrialized world.” (Key question: How much is enough? By Leo Babauta)

So what do we do with this endless hunger for more?

We notice that our house is already, or nearly so, full to the brim, ready to implode. We step back, take a breath, and let it sink in that we may have already gotten to that place of ENOUGH.

We recognize that we may have reached a saturation point. A point where you simply don’t have more space to put things or the ability to care for or enjoy them. That stage beyond which more of something cannot be absorbed or accepted.

In other words, DRINK SOME. Not as in GETTING more, but to USE what we already have. Empty the glass a bit and notice the freedom it gives you.