The Grace of Enough

What if living simply begins with believing we are already enough? In September’s “We Conspire” series, spiritual director Douglas Tsoi invites us to embrace the grace of enoughness — challenging our culture of accumulation and offering a contemplative path toward freedom, gratitude, and true wealth. 

When Franciscan spiritual director and personal finance teacher Douglas Tsoi teaches on the intersection of financial freedom and spirituality, he often shares a famous story about novelists Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller attending a party at the house of a Long Island billionaire. Vonnegut says to Heller, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?” Heller replies, “I’ve got something he can never have… the knowledge that I’ve got enough.”  

Tsoi’s path to enoughness and simplicity began at 22, fresh out of college, when he landed a job at the Justice Department in Washington D.C. earning $25,000 a year. Having lived frugally during college, Tsoi felt like he was rich. He decided if this was “enough” financially, spiritually, and environmentally, he was drawing the line there and not “raising his standard of living” as he advanced in his career.  

But his journey was not as simple as it sounds. At age 28, Tsoi was a corporate lawyer, driving a convertible and living in a nice apartment in San Francisco. “I thought I had everything, and I was miserable,” he shares.  

He remembers once looking out at the San Francisco Bay from his office on the 30th floor. Darkness swallowed him. Tears began to well up in his eyes. “I don’t know how to leave my job,” he remembers saying to himself in a moment of raw honesty.  

Not long after, he was fired amid the dot-com bust of 2001. “That’s when I discovered myself,” he shares. He went from making $150,000 a year as a corporate lawyer to $20,000 a year as a Quaker school teacher. He discovered silent worship and the contemplative path. He began to see the deeper spiritual dimensions of simplicity. 

“We need to be able to tell the difference between our needs and wants, because as the Buddha says, our desires are endless,” Tsoi shares. “The consequences of not knowing what is enough is both spiritual and environmental.” The spiritual life and a person’s bank account may seem unrelated, but Tsoi says there is a direct connection between enoughness and grace. “Grace and enoughness are always present,” Tsoi shares. “All we have to do is awaken to it.” 

Tsoi says that we all have “not-enoughness” — it’s part of our internal wounds and the narcissistic ego separateness that Fr. Richard Rohr might attribute to the “first half of life.” But to continually react to one’s sense of not-enoughness is an endless spiral that drives capitalism. “Capitalism wants you to believe you’re not enough. Because it’s the only way you can sell products. You can’t sell things to people who feel like they are enough.”  

Reverend angel Kyodo williams suggests refraining from using the word “my” for a month, from saying things like “my house” or “my car.” It is only then that we realize how deeply the notion of possession is embedded in American culture, creating division and fueling the false self. Focusing on possessing makes us constantly question our enoughness, because there is always more to possess.  

“Mysticism is about unity; capitalism thrives on separation,” Tsoi says.  

Tsoi says this expanding sense of one’s enoughness, forged in the contemplative and mystical path, goes hand in hand with the spiritual practice of “voluntary simplicity,” the deep understanding that we don’t need more because we’re inherently enough. For Tsoi, grace is found in recognizing that wholeness already abides within, a truth echoed by Buddhist teachings and Christian mystics. Most of us, however, are in perpetual pursuit of wholeness, stuck on a treadmill wanting more, unaware we already possess the wholeness we desire.  

“We’re constantly trying to solve our inner not-enoughness with external things,” he says. “But the only real answer is grace. If we’re already happy, it’s hard to spend money to be happy,” he notes. 

Through projects like the School of Financial Freedom, a course that bridges personal finance with spiritual wisdom, or the Appreciation Effect, a website that facilitates gratitude messages for loved ones, Tsoi seeks to cultivate enoughness in others. He is also involved in the Francesco Collaborative, an organization supported by the CAC that seeks to align investing with Catholic Social Teaching. He is currently helping build a course for the Francesco Collaborative that invites people and organizations to wrestle with this very question: What is enough?  

“The only real answer is grace,” Tsoi says. “We’re constantly searching for something more that will fulfill us without realizing it’s an addiction to our false selves. That’s my mission statement: help people participate in grace.”  

Reflect with Us  
What is a moment this week when you a sense of enoughness—whether spending time in nature, laughing with someone you care about, or finishing a task without rushing? Share your reflection with us.          

“We Conspire” is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the free monthly email series and receive your invitation to practice each month.