I live daily nestled between the beginnings of an existentialist crisis and the precipice of a nihilistic void. That’s not a cry for help, just a statement of fact. Most days I wonder if anything I do has any value and the other days are spent looking forward, worried that when I’m gone it’ll just prove my concerns were validated. My biggest fear in life is dying without having made any impact on the world in which I’ve lived for now 35 years.

I cope with this by learning. Constantly. I binge on information. Some useful. Some not so much. I do this in the hopes that someday something that I’ve picked up along these many years might be of some benefit to someone, somewhere. That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself and a lot of contingencies to accommodate for. And just thinking about that usually sends me back on the spiral of existentialist dread once more.

Because in the end, what I struggle with is knowing exactly what it means to have “enough”. It robs joy, it robs contentment, and it prevents me from seeing myself as I was truly created to be. Instead, all I see is “not enough”. Fill in the blank. Not smart enough. Not accomplished enough. Not a good enough husband/father/brother/son. Not a good enough friend. Not good enough in general. Not able to love enough. Not able to receive love enough. The list goes on.

And, I know the tendency is to want to help. The draw may be to list all the ways that I am, in fact enough. But the truth of the matter is that I’m not. Never will be. And that’s ok. What I need to know- what I need to be reminded of- is that where I’m not enough, Jesus is. Jesus is more than enough. And in my weakness, He is made strong. So if you want to help, don’t focus on me- I do enough of that on my own. Point me away from myself and back toward Jesus, the writer and perfecter of my faith.

My nihilistic tendencies get it so close. It’s not that nothing matters at all. It’s that nothing else matters. The rest will fall into place. #confessionsofanenneagram5

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