Isn’t Enough a Beautiful Word?

Frieda van der Merwe
Nov 11
2 min read

Hansel and Gretel didn’t end up in the witch’s oven because they were starving. They ended up there because they couldn’t stop.

The gingerbread house wasn’t a meal. It was more than enough: walls of cake, windows of sugar, a roof dripping with sweets. Abundance everywhere. And what did they do? They kept eating. Bite after bite, long after hunger was satisfied. Until abundance turned into danger.

That’s the trap of “too much.”

A steampunk reimagining of Hansel and Gretel shows two children wearing goggles and mechanical accessories eating pieces of a gingerbread house. The house, detailed with pipes, gears, and icing-covered roofs, stands in a misty forest. Smoke curls from its chimneys as the children indulge, unaware of the danger ahead.

We all have our indulgences. Mine have been linen, handbags, and stationery. I’ve loved them, I’ve bought them, but nobody needs this many pillowcases, or bedspreads, or leather bags, or notebooks. Pottery Barn made a fortune out of me, and for what? You can only sleep under one duvet at a time. You can only carry one bag. You can only write in one book.

While unpacking after moving countries, I saw it all again. We overcomplicate our lives with more than we need. Every extra pillowcase comes with its own admin: where to store it, what bag to pack it in, which set it matches, which bed it belongs on, what size goes where. It’s endless. Linen was supposed to bring comfort and beauty, but in excess it only brought complication and fuss.

That’s the thing with possessions. What promises joy often delivers management. And the more we collect, the more time, energy, and thought gets swallowed just keeping track of it all.

We tell ourselves abundance is safety. A full pantry. A bulging wardrobe. A holiday table groaning with food. But often it just gives us permission to take more than we need. Guests eat past comfort because the table is too full. Children lose track of what they own because there’s no room to value anything. And we get weighed down, not lifted up, by the very things that were meant to bless us.

Enough isn’t about deprivation. It’s about wisdom. Enough fills the stomach. Enough warms the body. Enough allows joy. More than enough clogs the system: food, space, time, life.