How much is enough?
Have you ever calculated how many days you could survive on just the available food in your house? Or how many days it would take to wear every piece of clothing in your closet once? Or how many pairs of shoes you actually need in a lifetime? In a culture that defines you by what you have, such questions lead us to another question: How much is enough? It is a critical query you don’t deliberately ask yourself, but it allows you to retreat, dig deeper and truly understand the joy of generosity. It is easy to be swayed by aspiration. But the concept of “enough” involves stepping off the conveyor belt of materialism to build a new purposeful tempo of life.
In the book More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity, Jeff Shinabarger shares practical stories of people who combat personal excess with heartfelt and generous giving. It offers a field guide for those who are attempting to take apart their acquisitive lifestyle and arrive at something more authentic. The author is a social entrepreneur, a designer and creative director. He is the founder of GiftCardGiver.com and Plywood Purple, an innovative community addressing social needs.
The tome speaks to “the haves” and provides some practical ideas on how to be more openhanded and help the “have nots.” Its various chapters focus on different areas of life that you can look at and change. Clothes, gift checks, food, vehicles and other material possessions are looked at from a perspective that invites you to take a look at your own existence and its attendant excesses, and provides an opening to a dialogue about radical generosity.
Shinabarger posits that people want to live a story that is greater than their own personal gain. In the book, he offers one story after another, each narrative redefining our sometimes limited image of the world in the hope that we can begin to discard a number of the burdens and baggages in your life, and hopefully become more authentic than we ever thought possible. At the end of each chapter, there is a portion called “Enough Talk,” which offers realistic, no-nonsense thoughts, encouraging readers to choose a lifestyle of unwarranted bigheartedness. Consider these easy moves:
• Look into your kitchen pantry or cupboard and set aside five cans of food. Deliver them personally to the nearest food bank in your area, and have a conversation with the person receiving your donation. By doing this, you will learn something you have not encountered before, and it will make you think in a new way about your next meal. Share the experience with a friend. Undoubtedly, food is a basic and essential need for survival. And if you have an excess of it, it’s one of the best things you can distribute to those in need. In Africa there is a concept known as ubuntu — the profound sense that you are human only through the humanity of others; that if you are to accomplish anything in this world it will be in equal measure due to the work and achievement of others. Part with your surpluses and overloads, and feed your soul.
• Go to your closet and drawers and pull out every piece of clothing that you own. Count the items. Sort them. How many days could you go without wearing the same thing twice? Are you satisfied with your number, or do you have excess? If you feel you have too much, then decide what is enough for each category of clothing. Arrange them and pare down your garments to meet your reasonable number. Anything more than that number you set is overindulgence. For sure, you will feel good about yourself when you look into a closet rid of so many “extras.” Kelsey Timmerman says, “The people who make our clothes are poor. We are rich. It’s natural to feel guilty or apathy or rejection of the system that does nothing to help. This quest is about the way we live and the way they live; because when it comes to clothing, others make it, and we have it made. And there’s a big, big difference.”
• Dump all the change everyone in the family has accumulated within a period time. Count it up, organize it roll by roll, and give it to an organization in great need, which can use your bequest to either start a new business that will benefit others or help to lift someone out of poverty today. Now, that is a gift worth giving. G.K Chesterton wrote, “There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
• Let go of your convenience to gain a greater understanding of the needs of others. You need to suffer with others, instead of simply pitying them. When was the last time you carpooled? Not just sharing a ride with one other person, but practicing the inconvenience of carpooling in community? Engage in carpooling one evening, one weekend, or even a week. If you do this experiment multiple times, consider changing the order of pick-ups and drop-offs each time. You might have some of the best conversations with your friends while experiencing this slightly inconvenient practice together. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
• Try to give to the poor for love what the rich could get for money. In the week ahead, look at your calendar and determine which events or activities on your schedule are most exciting to you. For each event, find a person to take with you who you think could benefit from the opportunity. Give someone else access to a new opportunity. This experiment is simple — just share your experience with others.
• Keep an excess bin in your house. Keep it for anything that you are not actively using anymore and could contribute to fill the needs of others. This bin can then be used for garage sales to raise money for orphans or charities, or contribute it directly to the needs of others. By committing to a place to gather your excess, you will keep what you have learned from this tome on a consistent basis and hopefully challenge how you live regularly. “If we value things of the world, we will miss the things of true value,” Kim Biddle says.
More or Less doesn’t over-promise. And it’s not exploitative writing. It is just a truthful road map for those who aren’t afraid to try walking the rough terrains for a few years, in the hope that God will give them a new conception of what an “abundant life” can be like. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “All life is experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Generosity is a chance to experience freedom in a world obsessed with gaining more. You are entering the last quarter of the year. The longest Christmas season anywhere in the world has started in this country. Join a generation discovering that defining what is “enough” is no small thing — it is the beginning of love in action.
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