Will We Ever Have Enough?

Five years ago, in the sopping heat of summer, my husband and I bought our first house in North Carolina. Coming from a cramped apartment in California, we were amused by the prospect of caring for a yard and having storage for art supplies.When we showed pictures of our new bungalow’s layout to the seven-year-old daughter of Bay Area friends, she giggled, then asked, “What are you going to do with two bathrooms? Go at the same time?" She shared a small, one bathroom house with her family of six. Two bathrooms for two people was more than enough. It was laughable.What does it mean to have enough? Ethicists and economists alike have tried to answer that question within a field referred to as happiness studies.Thought to have taken off in the late 1970s, happiness studies have concluded two very interesting points. The first conclusion is that people are constantly making adjustments in their assessment of what constitutes enough. This should ring true for anyone who thought they’d be happier once they lost that last ring of belly fat or saved up for that first home, and then, once attained, felt compelled to set an even higher goal for themselves. Once basic needs are met, happiness becomes relative rather than absolute.Writers know this feeling well. We want the validation of being published and then once published we want the comfort of success and then once successful we want to be left alone to make our art in peace. We might experience a brief rise in happiness when we get what we want, but our contentment soon acclimates to nearly the same “set point” as before.You can find me - and the rest of this article - at eChurchGiving: http://blog.echurchgiving.com/will-we-ever-have-enough/