There are many psychology practices and philosophies that revolve around the idea of “being good enough”—i.e., the fact that you don’t have to work yourself to death and please everyone all the time to be worthy of love. On the other side of the “not good enough” spectrum, there are people at the top of their fields who strive to continue to improve and perfect their craft. The question for today is, “How can both of these things be true?”
Well, it’s simpler than it seems. The goal in life is to grow, which means that you are continuously improving your life for yourself and the people you care about. As such, you want to make your life and their lives as great as possible. This is the “good” side of “never enough”: the job is never done, and you can always get better and better to make life better and better. As long as you don’t overstrain yourself and cause harm, “never enough” is a good attitude to have.
However, there is the exhausting side of the “never enough” concept where you try to please others for their approval and affection. Unfortunately, we live in a world where there are familial and peer groups along with things such as attractiveness and capability that separate groups from each other. This aspect of human behavior manifests as cliques, clubs, teams, groups, and social classes. In psychology, they call this the “in-group” (vs. “out-group” for people who are not part of your social group). Because humans had greater survivability and greater access to reproduction when being part of these groups, there is great effort and competition to join.
Typically, groups will stay together as long as everyone conforms to the same set of rules (or meets the same qualifications, as is for groups based on accomplishments or attractiveness). Sometimes, they will let in people with lower status as a means to either bolster their own profile or for the extra work they are willing to provide to be part of the group. As such, those people will only be allowed as long as they serve their purpose.
Unfortunately, even close family members, relationships, or friendships can fall into this behavior. There is the cold parent who would never show love to his or her child and so the child would do more and more to try to receive it. There is the attractive man or woman who is able to command an imbalanced relationship where the other party might make up for their lower attractiveness with additional labor or income. In cases like these, the approval or affection will either never come no mater what you do or only come as long as you continue to provide what got you into the relationship in the first place. This is the unfortunate reality that creates the negative “never enough” mentality; because people need to eat, drink, sleep, maintain shelter, have sex, be social, receive attention, and be entertained regularly, the person providing conditional love will need those conditions to be met today, tomorrow, the next day, and on and on until the end of time.
The good and bad “never enough” sounds like they’re the same thing, but as you can see, they’re very, very different. On the positive side, you see people continually striving to be better, practicing, and enjoying the process. To have the attitude that you can always get better and that it’s enjoyable to do so is one of the healthiest mindsets you can have. There are occasional downsides to it, such as the person who has a constructive “never enough” attitude in response to a negative “never enough” attitude from a parent, but most of the time it is beneficial to the person and the people around him or her to excel and keep striving for more.
The negative “never enough” is a punishing gauntlet of effort to maintain the relationship(s) that a person has. It’s exhausting, it can feel cold and lonely, and it’s done not for the sake of doing it or improving but for the sake of approval or affection. Whether it’s a parent who will never truly show you love or a friend, spouse, or someone you look up to who only acknowledges you for a moment if you do something for them, the situation is about as tenable as long as you can stand it…that is, until the day you can’t.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this: exploitation is going to happen as long as there are people with something that another person wants badly enough. It’s why market pricing is such a great invention: there is minimal room for exploitation because you offer a product or service at a transparent price and the other person takes it or leaves it. But with people, you have no idea what the “price” is for that approval or affection. Hopefully, you have a few people in your life who love you unconditionally. Anyone else, however, expects reciprocation at best or at additional compensation at worst for whatever they offer in terms of approval, affection, social status, or perks of being part of the group. I know you’ll be thinking, “If they just got to know me, they would like me…” and that might be true. But, if you pay the price and have to keep paying it, you have to ask yourself whether this person cares about you or just benefits from the relationship without having to exert any real effort to give whatever it is that you’re getting from it.
So, you have good “never enough” of wanting to continuously make your life better, and bad “never enough” of trying so hard for so long to get something that will never result in the thing you really want (to have another person’s love, affection, or approval without having to do things for them). Let’s end with what to do if you are on the other side of this.
If you ever manage to find yourself on the other side of a potentially exploitative relationship, you should think deeply about the ethics of your behavior going forward. It’s unfortunate that people who want to do things for you and give you things will get mad if you don’t accept them and blame you for being a bad person. That’s the cross you bear on that side: doing the right thing makes you look like a jerk. It’s better to not include someone in your group than to include them because (to use the old Seinfeld reason) they have a ping pong table. If you don’t really like them, pretending to for benefits is exploitation—especially if you’re going to abandon them as soon as those special benefits end. Similarly, if you realize that a child will try harder at everything in life if you withhold affection, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing to do so. There are more examples of people overdosing on drugs, committing suicide, or living miserable lives even though they rose to the top of their fields than there are of people who succeeded from that treatment and lived well-adjusted lives. Yes, it might mean that you have to hurt someone’s feelings today by rejecting them to save them tomorrow or to express some care and attention when it’s not your personality, but you should definitely do your best to avoid creating a “not enough” feeling in others if you can.
In short, you always want to strive to improve, but be careful not to continue to strive for someone else if you’re looking for validation. It’s a dangerous psychological truth that people try harder when things that they want are harder to get (they even use the term “playing hard to get” in dating for that exact reason). Don’t fall for the trick, and don’t abuse it in others. If you don’t like a person for who they are, then don’t pretend to for benefits. If you have a child who loves you, don’t withhold your love to increase their performance. It’s not often that I get to state moral principles that are as universally true as they can be, but this one is as close as they come and so I’ll make a rare exception here: people who are generally good in terms of moral behavior and fair contribution/capability need a fair portion of approval, attention, care, and affection as other members of the group (e.g., other children or other friends). To treat someone poorly because it paradoxically makes you better off is about as bad of a situation as there is in life. Try to avoid being part of the “never enough” negative spiral.
Never feeling satisfied with how capable you are is a good thing because it drives you to improve; never feeling satisfied with the love you receive indicates an issue with that relationship. Know the difference, and you’ll be much better off in the long run even if it means a decent amount of pain in the short run.