BY JENNIFER MADRIGAL

A few months ago one of my friends shared a sweet story on her Facebook feed.  There was something about the story that really stuck with me as the message of it was so poignant in today’s world.  It seems that we so often have so much more than we really need and yet spend so much of our time trying to acquire more.  What we really need is just enough. Too much, and we don’t realize how good we have it; too little, and we find ourselves consumed with the struggle to keep our heads above water.

This little story called, “I Wish You Enough” (author unknown), has been rewritten countless times.  Sometimes it’s between a mother and son, or a father and daughter, but the message is still the same. The story is paraphrased below.

A mother and a daughter were hugging goodbye at an airport and the mother told the daughter, “I wish you enough.”  The daughter smiled and wished her mother the same. Once her mother had boarded the plane, the stranger that had been observing asked the daughter why she had told her mother that particular wish. What did, “I wish you enough,” actually mean? The daughter explained that they wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them. The daughter then looked at the stranger and said, “I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all you possess, and I wish you enough hellos to prepare you for the final goodbye.”

As both a parent and a child who has lost her mother, I found the message of this story very touching. While all of us want the best for our children, we sometimes give them too much and they can miss the meaning of the “struggle”. Often the best kids come from parents that taught them to be content with “enough” instead of constantly desiring more. This short story reaffirmed my desire to try and teach my boys to be satisfied with enough, and made me appreciate all the “hellos” I shared with my mother before she said her final goodbye.  I hope that this story can serve as a gentle reminder to be happy with what you have and that this year brings you all, “enough”.