Where’s the Mysterious Line Between Too Much and Not Enough?

How do you identify this mysterious line along any given path?

I sometimes wonder if I am doing too much or not enough. This applies to many of the paths I’m walking in my life.

For example – writing and editing. This year, I’ve written and published 6 novels. Was that too much – or not enough?

How can I question this? Because I know an author who publishes about a book a month. Decent, good books. That’s more than my 6 this year.

For 2022, I have 11 books planned/plotted, plus 1 to edit and publish. Can I/will I produce all of them next year? If not all of them – which of them?

Then – let’s add a wrinkle to this process – my freelance jobs eat up some of my time, now. Despite the daily goal I set for myself – am I writing enough? I have missed my daily 1500 words of fiction writing goal more often than made it.

This is especially apparent as I am attempting to participate in NaNoWriMo with one of the above-mentioned 11 books.

Too much versus not enough is a completely arbitrary line that only I can recognize and negotiate. Even still, it is not always apparent – and before I know it, I’m overwhelmed.

Where is the line between too much and not enough? And how do you identify it along any given path?

The Goldilocks ideal

In theory, there should be a place that’s just right between the extremes. Hence – the Goldilocks Ideal.

Isn’t there an ideal? Depends on the topic. Sometimes yes – sometimes no. Why? Because what makes me feel like I have reached the point of just right versus too much or too little is wildly variable. And sometimes it’s not apparent between those extremes.

For example – I write a blog post around an average of 1000 words 6 days a week. That’s 6000 words a week. Thus, I’m writing 312,000 words per year in blogs.

If an average novel is 75,000 words – I’m writing more than 4 novels worth of blogs per year.

This is in addition to my fiction writing. All 6 novels for 2021 average (I am guessing here) 50,000 words each – which is 300,000 words more.

All told, that’s 612,000 words in a year. For some context, that’s the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy plus The Hobbit – and 35,000 extra words.

And yet – I still question if I am writing enough. This is due, in part, because I spent a lot of my fiction writing time working on outlines, worldbuilding, and plotting over writing the actual stories. But that has provided me with the materials to write 11 new novels.

Still, I am not feeling like I have reached the Goldilocks ideal. The question of the line between too much and not enough remains.

Why question the mysterious line?

I work non-traditionally.

Despite – on the one hand – not caring how other people think about me and what I do – on the other hand – I do. I’m only human. Though it doesn’t matter to me what others think about my life choices – it does.

This is an annoying dichotomy. Though I am far happier working independently from my home office, I sometimes feel judged. As I work on writing and editing plus freelance gigs – keeping unique hours – I sometimes worry about what impression I am making.

Does anyone really care? No. Perhaps those who love me worry sometimes that I am not taking the traditional route (and in at least one case, all the time). But I know who I am and what is right for ME.

But the only person capable of recognizing the line between too much and not enough is me.

Nobody else is in my head, heart, or soul. Ergo, nobody else knows my thoughts, feelings, and intentions. All they see are my actions.

Sometimes the intent behind the actions is not so visible.

Then there is the question of satisfaction. What I do and how I do it is satisfying. But because the end result has not reached where I desire for it to be, the question of the line and which side of it I am on rears its ugly head.

In other words – the judgiest judge of me is me. But that judgment is a reflection not of the expectations of others as much as what I expect they are expecting of me.

I have no control over anyone other than myself. Hence – I must work to control that which I can.

This is where intent and action become super important.

Identifying the mysterious line

The best place to find where the mysterious line between too much and not enough might be is mindfulness.

Specifically, being consciously aware as well as pausing and reflecting.

Mindfulness is being consciously aware of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That conscious awareness is in the present moment. This gets me out of my subconscious mind – as well as the egoistic impression I am working to make on others – and into my mindset/headspace/psyche inner being.

All I need to do to activate mindfulness is ask questions like,

What am I thinking?
How and what am I feeling?
What am I doing and what’s my intent?

Asking each question – and answering it myself, preferably aloud – awakens conscious awareness. That can help clarify where, what, why, who, and how I am – here and now.

Which, in turn, can show me the line between too much and not enough.

Then there is pausing and reflecting. For me, this tends to take one of two forms:

Meditation. I meditate 20 minutes a day. Taking the time to do that puts me in the present and centers me.
Deep breathing. Taking just a 2-minute break from whatever else I am doing, setting a timer, I breathe in and out deeply. It’s amazing how much that can calm, center, and balance me.

This is how I identify the mysterious line along any given path I am walking.

But this is never one-and-done. Every day is a new day. Hence – every day there are new questions and debates about finding the Goldilocks ideal and/or identifying the line between too much and not enough.

Thus – the line moves. Still, finding it is a matter of intent and action. And when you find it you can better work to create the Goldilocks ideal – where all is juuuuuuuuuust right.

Do you straddle the mysterious line between too much and not enough from time to time?

This is the five-hundred and sixteenth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

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