on whatever "enough" is

hello, friends. this essay is the final installment of my 2025 five days of offerings series, where i try to give you a lot of free insights and spreads and activities to try out, and also share a discounted resource to further support that work. catch up with the whole series here.

if you don't have time to read this right now, it'll keep — but i do want to let you know that i'm finally opening up a limited number of year-ahead readings, and you can snag yours right now. this year i'm offering these in two different formats: a standard year-ahead reading delivered ASAP, or a four-reading set, where we'll check in with a shorter reading every quarter throughout the year.

and if a tarot reading isn't in the budget or simply isn't of interest right now, don't worry — i've got something for you too. for the next three days, use the code 3AMWORKBOOK to get 20% off all four of my popular tarot workbooks: from grief to hope (and back again), ocean's 16, goodnight tarot, and good morning tarot workbooks. i hope these help you reconnect with your practice, build rituals of care and support, and embrace your unique skill set.

now, let's talk about whatever the hell "enough" is.

the most consistent thing that i hear from clients, friends, peers, and community members these days is "i just feel like i'm not doing enough."

we are seeing catastrophic levels of suffering every day, from poverty and hunger and lack of healthcare to genocides, occupations, and climate disasters. the most powerful people on the planet are extracting as many resources as they possibly can at a dizzying rate, and the rest of us are just trying to survive.

the people are responding. every day i see new protests and boycotts getting organized, new mutual aid networks springing up, new fundraisers for abortion access or trans healthcare or disaster relief. every day i see people showing the fuck up, fighting like hell, extending care and compassion and love, trying to offer one another dignity in a world that seeks to strip all of us of our humanity in favor of productivity. every day i am reminded that no one person can do this alone, and no one way works.

but there's an insidious guilt that comes with doing something: that elusive concept of "enough." i've written about this before, but as fascism continues to escalate here in the states, it bears repeating: you have to do something, but you can't do everything.

there are plenty of ways to figure out what your something is. you might like the frameworks of finding your role or utilizing your skills. you might like the control of choosing something that you can be consistent with. you might like the accountability of something that you can do with friends or loved ones. it doesn't actually matter how you arrive at your something — it matters that you do, and that you then actually do that something.

but expecting yourself to be perfect is setting yourself up for disappointment. expecting yourself to do everything means you'll ultimately do nothing. and honestly, why do you expect yourself to do everything? do you think that nobody else is doing it, or that they aren't doing it properly, and that your specific hands and heart are needed in order for that thing to get done?

do you think that if you don't show up for every single thing you care about, that it means you don't care about every single one of those things?

do you think that everyone else is somehow doing everything, and that you're inferior for not having the same capacity?

listen to me: if you were actually lazy, you wouldn't feel guilty about not doing enough. if you didn't care, you wouldn't worry about not caring enough. if you weren't interested in showing up, you wouldn't get frustrated about the things you aren't doing.

it is absolutely possible that you aren't doing anything, that you've frozen up or stalled out and need to either recover from burnout (if you tried to do everything) or just pick one goddamn thing and do it (if you haven't done anything).

but if you're doing something consistently, whether it's facilitating community or volunteering in your neighborhood or donating goods and services or doing archival work or joining your library board or creating graphics for your food pantry or showing up to local organization meetings or whatever it is, then you are doing it.

you would know if you're not actually doing anything. so i really need you to sit with the truth of the thing: do you have capacity and desire and resources to do more than you're doing? or are you just getting sucked into hyper-individualist perfectionist white savior bullshit (even if you aren't white) and punishing yourself for the things you are not doing? are you just getting off on beating yourself up, which doesn't actually help anything and just prioritizes your desire to be a hero over actual action?

it is infinitely better for you to be trustworthy and reliable in a few ways than it is for you to sign up for a million commitments and then abandon them all. it is infinitely more effective for you to show up again and again with consistency than it is for you to only show up only once for a bunch of different things. and in my experience, it is infinitely easier for you to focus on something you already deeply care about than it is for you to do a thing you feel like you should care more about.

stop making this harder than it needs to be, friends. try things out and figure out what you can reasonably do, and then do it.

if it helps, here's what i do: i facilitate community via digital spaces as well as with monthly free tarot meetups in my neighborhood. i donate tarot readings and clothing and photography services and books to organizations around the city. i share free tarot spreads and personal care resources to help people find spiritual grounding in their daily life. i try to show up for my friends in practical ways, even if (especially if) they don't ask for help. and my work itself, the work that pays my bills and reflects my sense of personal purpose, is focused on helping people find spiritual support for navigating emotions, transformations, rebellions, griefs, and creative expressions.

in other words, i am operating right at my capacity level. are there other things i care about? god, yes. i wish i could be on my local library board and help fight book bans; i wish i could be at my local food pantry every day getting food into hungry bellies; i wish i could offer abortion escort services at my local clinic. i wish i could pick up trash in my neighborhood every day. i wish i could give away tarot readings to community members. i could probably list a hundred things like this, and it still wouldn't be everything.

but i am confident that i'm doing what i can reasonably do. i'm committing to things that i know i won't flake on. i'm exhausted and struggling to find balance between showing up in the ways that are so important to me and also making sure i can pay my rent and be a good wife and friend and also somehow write this goddamn devil book that is taking so much longer than i thought.

it's hard. it's so fucking hard. i'm so scared all the time. and, also — showing up helps. writing down the things that i'm doing helps. respecting the ways that i am fighting back helps. not minimizing what i do helps. and acknowledging that i literally do not have the energy to do more than i'm doing helps.

some of the words or callouts i've written here might feel overly harsh. and maybe they are. but i think that if you're someone who has been wringing your hands for months or years, not actually doing anything and using the energy that you have to center yourself and your helplessness, then this can be a bit of a wakeup call. you've gotta stop being more afraid of failure than fascism.

what's the point of the fretting if it doesn't lead to anything?

what's the purpose of all that helplessness if you don't turn it into action?

what's the benefit of punishing yourself if you won't ever move past the pain?

if you're feeling lost, or called out, or frustrated, i hope these tarot spreads help. i also highly encourage you to write down what you're already doing, and to really recognize those things, and to pay attention to where any feelings of "not enough" are actually coming from. you're probably doing more than you're giving yourself credit for. and if you're not? commit to adding something else in, actually do it for a month or two, and see how it feels.

you're not gonna change the world overnight, or in six months, or maybe even in your lifetime. you're not gonna walk into the community center for the first time to cheers and hugs and someone putting a medal around your neck just for showing up. you're not gonna get your face on a poster that says "volunteer of the year" the third time you do something for the neighborhood.

but you will know that you're helping to make the kind of world you want to see. you will be able to rest in the knowledge that you're putting your money, or time, or energy, or skills, where your mouth is. you will genuinely help people around you. and you will stop spinning in circles about some false idea of "enough."

we don't know where we will end up. and that is scary, but it's also relentlessly optimistic. anything is possible, and anything is possible. we don't know right now what our consistent actions may build to, may pave the way for, may inspire.

stop worrying about "enough," and commit to doing what you can. then go and do it.

here at the end of this year's essay series, with 2026 around the corner, i really want to encourage you to recognize that hard things are, in fact, hard. i want to give you permission to say "good enough" instead of "not perfect." i want you to commit to reflection practices that help you see yourself clearly, to resting in ways that actually support and delight you.

i want you to be brave enough to make mistakes. i want you to show up for your community in ways that are sustainable. i want you to embrace your skills and also take joy in learning new ones. and i want you to stop punishing yourself for your needs and dreams, and instead to actually just take care of them with love.

we can do this, together. don't give up before you even start.

thank you for reading, for sharing, for sending me lovely comments, and for supporting my work. many of the discounts i've posted over the last few days are still active, so make sure you explore the whole series, gather up all thirteen brand new tarot spreads that i've shared, and snag yourself a new tarot resource or two to support yourself.

you're doing great, you deserve rest, and it's okay to assess your capacity sometimes and adjust as needed. keep going, friends. stay strong.