Feeling Like It's Not Enough? Do It Anyway
See if you can relate to this. There's a stratum of conscious mental activity that keeps telling you something and/or that "just" makes you feel a certain way. But then there's another stratum that feels like it's definitely placed above this first stratum (in the overall hierarchy of strata) that has the first stratum as it's object of reflection. Let's call them 'voices'. The "default voice" and the "meta voice". We can probably trace more such voices than just the one above the first one (so we go meta on meta).
I think that one of my problems is that for most of my life I have been caught in the default voice. I have learnt to trust it unconditionally. It tells me something, and I just go with it. I makes me feel a certain way, and I kinda go with that too.
It doesn't mean that this default voice is stupid or more primal/"reptilian" or not analytical enough. Au contraire, it seems that for many of us, this voice is the cleverest, the most analytical of the bunch. This voice is the voice of discipline and the voice of resisting our primal urges. This is the voice of trying to foresee the future and keeping you safe. Safe and stuck. This is the voice that has always been telling me to study and research and to complicate and overthink. Instead of just taking a blunt (and seemingly stupid) action in the real world.
This is the voice that tells you to overengineer your infrastructure. Instead of tackling way more important life problems. This is the voice that tells you you need to spend weeks (!) carefully perusing The Archeology of Knowledge to reach the ultimate understanding of what "Foucauldian Discourse", which on closer inspection (from one of those meta standpoints, that is) you don't even need. And it would have been enough to just grasp the gist of the concept, which could have been done in a few hours if not minutes using a secondary source. So you get stuck on "studying" and "researching" instead of putting together an albeit minimally but still quite viable and -- most importantly -- complete doctoral thesis.
What I have been trying to do lately is identify the typical "narratives" of the dominant voice, going meta on them, exposing them, and (hopefully) telling them that from now on they ain't callin' the shots no more.
One such clear narrative/feeling is "this is not enough". And it works like this. See if you can relate. You know that you need to do X. Incidentally, the necessity of doing X could actually be the product of the dominant voice. After all, I wouldn't say this voice is useless. It isn't. In many ways. But then instead of (a) just taking one of the most immediate actions that will take you closer to X and (b) doing it as soon as (reasonably) possible, you stall. Because your voice starts telling you that whatever action could be taken towards X is not enough to get to X fast enough or efficiently enough. Or that any of the possible actions taken towards X under these circumstances is not going to be good enough or something else enough.
Making that phone call to a person that can potentially assist you in getting closer to X? Well, I don't really have enough time now. And I haven't done enough preparation (whatever it actually is) to make that phone call. Researching possible employment options? Oh, I need like the whole afternoon blocked for that. Any less time is not enough to do a good enough job of the task. And then I also need to set up "a database" (or something like that) to be meticulous enough about organizing the information I find during this search. Need to work on a project? Oh, I need the whole afternoon blocked for that too. The 30 minutes I have now is not enough to do the work that's going to be good enough.
The point I am trying to make here is that for that first dominant voice (if it's anything like mine) it's never going to be enough enough (see what I did here?). And what I have been trying to do is "go meta" on that voice and say something like, "I know you know this is not enough. But also, f$ck you! I am doing it anyway." From now on, I am going to catch this "not enough" narrative and do whatever I think needs to be done despite me genuinely feeling like it's not enough.
I have done this a few times already. And quite surprisingly, I have noticed two things happening. If you just get started, once you're done, you may actually start feeling that it has actually been enough. At least for now. And even the dominant voice gets convinced. Somewhat. Or you still feel that it's not enough, but as long as the meta voice tells you, "you're clearly moving in the right direction, bro", you are going to move in that direction, taking steps that are not enough. Which, I bet, over time will become a "You know what? It has been enough after all."
PS: For me the jury's still out whether it has been enough with this post. But I can tell you one thing: When I was about to start writing this, the dominant voice kept telling me there wasn't enough of anything in the environment to produce work that is going to be good enough. I'm glad I told that voice to take a hike.
Originally published: 2026-05-21