How to Embrace the Idea of Enough in Life

“Can we come see the camper at 8 p.m. tonight?” The message read on Facebook Marketplace at 6 p.m. while I was myself looking at new campers that I would like to buy. “Sure,” I replied and then continued looking at newer, better campers that I wasn’t going to buy right away, but some day, for sure. And that’s when it hit me: the camper I have is perfectly good. Better than good, in fact. Someone would be lucky to own it, I thought. I’m lucky to own it, I realized.

And I promptly wrote the inquiring Facebook users to let them know I would not be selling my camper after all. My little tent trailer, that I’d literally hauled from one end of this country to the other all by myself, was not just good, it was enough. Enough, I’m coming to learn, is a great way to measure my life. And I want to share with you how I’ve been letting go of the idea of more and embracing the idea of enough.

The Idea of Enough Doesn’t Start Out Feeling Like Enough

This story isn’t really about a camper, but in a lot of ways, it is really about a camper. I’d always wanted a camper because I’d always loved camping. I loved camping so much that I saw myself living the van life before van life was a thing on Instagram. I vividly remember being 18 years old and looking forward to a future of travel, maybe with a couple of dogs and what I know now is called a remote job, even though back then, there wasn’t a term for it. My 18-year-old mind saw it all clear as day: I was going to be on the road.

Of course, that’s not at all the route my life took. Instead I got engaged at 22, bought a house and got married at 24, had my son when I was 26. Then spent the next few years living the dream of raising my son, working sometimes two jobs to pay for that house, and never getting to travel the way I wanted to. But I was happy enough with how things had turned out. Even still, I caught myself daydreaming about hitting the road every now and then, and it occurred to me that while I wasn’t getting to live out my 18-year-old dreams immediately, maybe there were things I could do to have some of those experiences anyway.

But Then it Does Start to Feel Like Enough

An interesting thing started happening that I didn’t recognize at the time, but am so thankful for now that I have years of experience and self-reflection under my belt. I knew that while I couldn’t pick up and travel whenever I wanted to when my son was younger, I could still travel and in particular, I could camp. In fact, my then-husband and I camped all the time. It was a cheap way to get out and have an adventure. We took our son on his first camping trip the summer before he turned two years old.

While I didn’t have the self-awareness or even the vocabulary to name what I was doing back then, I know now that what I was doing was living a version of “enough.” I couldn’t go far and wide like I dreamed, but going to the lake to camp for a weekend was enough. I couldn’t buy a camper back then, but the old 4-man tent I had since university was enough. We didn’t have a camp stove so we cooked over the fire, sometimes to our own detriment, but it was enough.

We Want It All Now When We Could Enjoy The Idea of Enough Instead

I had already learned to look for the pieces of my life that were enough, while still working toward the things I wanted. It would be many years later that I would finally get my hands on a camper and the funny thing is at the time it was purchased, I didn’t look at it as something that was good enough for now, no, it was literally my dream camper.

I remember the salesman saying it was a good starter camper and I thought to myself, “I’m going to have this thing for a long time.” It hadn’t even occurred to me that I would upgrade later. I was living my “later” right now! But his job was to already start selling me my next camper. I was just looking forward to getting out and living a version of a dream I’d had longer than he’d been selling campers.

That was five years ago and my little camper has seen more miles than most people will ever see in their lifetime. It’s held up pretty well. I recently had it inspected and was surprised to find it was dubbed “a great little trailer” by the mechanic and “well worth the money I was asking for it” when I told him it was for sale. So why was I selling it? Why was it suddenly not good enough when it had more than met the idea of enough before?

If Everything is Awesome, Why Do We Need to Upgrade?

I had to stop and ask myself that question several times while I continued to get inquires about the listing on Facebook and Kijiji. Why was I selling it? Because in 2022, I took an epic road trip with my little tent trailer and when I came back, the first thing I said was “I’m going to need a bigger camper.” But not for the reasons you might think. The reason I wanted a bigger camper wasn’t to have more space. It was to have more functionality.

Maybe you’re not familiar with the inner workings of a tent trailer. Let me paint the picture for you: mine is a 2016 Forest River Rockwood tent trailer that is manually cranked and has no bathroom. But even though I have to turn the bar over 40 times to get the roof to the right height every single time I set it up, and even though I have to either pee in the woods or find a bathroom in a campground or on the road when the urge arises, it was the fact that I had to make my bed every single time I set the camper up that drove me crazy.

A small chore for some, but for me, after sometimes 10 hours on the road and getting lost in the dark while driving across Canada, the one thing I wished was different was that my bed was made and waiting for me at the end of the day. I enjoyed setting up the camper and getting my site ready each time I landed somewhere new.

We Let Minor Inconvenience Make Up Our Minds For Us Sometimes

I built a whole routine around setting up and breaking camp and even in the rain, I knew how to efficiently get things ready so I could be warm and dry as soon as possible. But the bed thing: setting up and then making the bed annoyed me enough that I decided I needed a whole new camper just to enjoy camping.

So when I got home from my cross-country road trip I got to researching bigger and better campers. But the problem was that I was working with a 4-cylinder Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport that had about as much towing guts as the tent trailer itself, so my options were limited as to what I could buy next. We were still at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic when I made my trek across the country and still in the throws of uncertainty when I decided I wanted to buy something else to camp with…but I was going to need a bigger vehicle.

Laying the Groundwork for a Life I Though I Wanted

A fun fact about me: I’m like a dog with a bone when I get an idea and as soon as it occurred to me that the first step in getting a new camper wasn’t to actually trade in my old one and buy a new one, it was that I needed to buy a truck to tow a new camper, I got to searching for a new truck. And it wasn’t two months after I arrived home from my cross-country trip that I pulled in the yard with a new-to-me 6-cylinger Jeep Gladiator truck. I’d gotten the first part of the plan under way. Now, I just had to buy a new camper.

And I looked. A lot. I became obsessed with finding the perfect camper to tow behind my new truck. I could see myself back on the road, hauling something fancy behind me, with all the extra cargo space the truck offered–er, actually, wait a minute. The truck didn’t offer more cargo space than the Wrangler. And those extra cylinders didn’t make it better for hauling my trailer. It somehow made it worse. And my God, this thing is slow off the line. What the hell?

Wait, Didn’t I Ask For This?

It turned out that as much as I thought I was going to love the Gladiator truck, I actually didn’t love it at all. It was hard to pack, hard on gas, and not nearly as fun to drive as the Wrangler was, even with the doors and roof off it. I had that truck for less than a year and I was already thinking about trading it in.

I even went to a dealership and looked at buying an SUV, but I owed so much money on the truck that it made the cheap little SUV I was looking at about as expensive as a luxury car. And then my husband and I separated and life kind of went to shit for a while, so my little tent trailer sat in the yard at the house I used to live in, unused for over a year.

Getting Back on Track

Fast forward to the next year and I had a yard of my own again to park my camper in, and although I took it camping three times in the summer of 2024, I found myself still wishing it was better and bigger. I closed it up for the winter and when the spring of 2025 rolled around, I listed it for sale. I’d had a plan: get a better vehicle so I could get a better camper.

I was sticking to the plan. Except I’d already gotten a new vehicle with — get this — 5000 lbs of towing capacity! Do you know what kind of trailers I could be hauling with 5000 lbs of towing capacity?! I was so excited to start looking for a new camper right away. And look I did.

I went to RV shows, browsed for sale ads, signed up for notifications. The image I’d had in my head of me on the road was getting closer with each day that passed. Except, I really wasn’t going to be able to hit the road just yet. My son lives with me and is still in high school. I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing with my business and how I’m going to continue to support myself (fingers crossed this blog contributes to that in the future!) and I need to decide what I’m doing with my house when I get on the road because I had always imagined traveling like this full-time.

Except the Track Wasn’t Going to Look That Different After All

And then someone asked if they could come see my camper at 8 p.m. one night a few weeks ago and I suddenly decided it was not for sale. It’s not like I was going to run out and buy a new camper tomorrow if I sold the old one tonight. It’s not like I’m getting on the road for the next six months and am in desperate need of a stationary bed to flop into at the end of the night.

No, it was not like I was going to even make money on the sale of my trailer. In fact, I’d have to kick in some cash to pay off the loan if I let it go right now. And then I’d have less cash and no trailer? Ummm, no thanks. What was I even doing?

Maybe Bigger Isn’t Always Better. Maybe Enough is Actually Enough.

I remembered how much better I thought things were going to be when I traded up from my Jeep Wrangler to the Jeep Gladiator. But they weren’t. And I used that to remind myself that having something bigger isn’t always better and I reminded myself of all the good times I had in my tent trailer, whether alone or with other people.

I decided that the three minutes it took to fluff a sheet over the mattress and place some blankets and pillows on the bed wasn’t as dramatic as I was making it out to be and I re-imagined this summer on the road, at the lake, and in the mountains with my camper. Maybe it will be the last summer I have it, maybe not. But one thing is for sure: it will be enough.

The Idea of Enough is Finally Becoming Clearer

And that’s a long-winded way of saying that I am finally learning, at the spring-chicken age of 43, that the things I used to think would make my life better back then aren’t necessarily the things that are making it better now. And I’m recognizing all the ways that I see potential for my fully-manifested dreams in the world, but am loving the version of those dreams that are enough right now. It’s making me more patient. Actually, it’s making me aware of how patient I’ve always been.

If I couldn’t have the thing I wanted right now, I could have a version of it and it turns out that having “enough” has been something I’ve always leaned into. I’m just old enough now to see that as a strength, not a weakness. When I was younger, not having exactly what I wanted felt like I was being cheated of something, but in the meantime, I’d get as close to it as I could.

You Have to Get to One Before You Get to One Hundred

When the idea of owning a cottage came up, but it wasn’t in the financial cards to own one, I’d rent one. I’d always dreamed of owning a sports car, but long before I could afford to even rent one, let alone own one, I went to car shows to see them. Before I owned a home, I’d go to open houses. Before I drove across the country, I drove around the province. When I couldn’t afford nice furniture, I sanded and painted the furniture I had. Before I had a business that supported my life, I’d had a side hustle. Okay, like 20 side hustles, but you get the point.

And the point is that if we were able to expand our definition of success beyond the finite outcome we expect of ourselves, we’d probably be amazed at the things we’ve been able to create. And if we can expand the timeline for our success, we are sure to find versions of it along the way. Not Just the idea of enough, but actually enough.

What Matters More?

This story isn’t about a camper, but believe me when I say it is absolutely about what that camper represents. When I looked at my bank account two months ago and realized I had enough money to take the next 12 months off from my business, I decided to do it. Yes, I could still double or even triple my income this year. And yes, I could get more clients, have more amazing projects and even set myself up for next year.

I’d never get this time back and in true Heather fashion, I’m making the most of what I have while I have it. I could spend that money on a new camper and keep working. Or I could leave the money in the bank and make use of the camper I already have. I get to decide how to use my time right now and if there’s anything that being on the road with a truck and a camper represents for me, it’s exactly that: getting to decide how to use my time.

What Does the Idea of Enough Look Like For You?

So I want you to think about things in your life that you wish were better, bigger, of fancier and I want you to consider that maybe they don’t need to be or have those things. Maybe what you have is already enough. Your house is already your sanctuary. Your garden is already your happy place. And maybe your camper is already the thing that gets you outside, loving the fresh air, and reading until the sun goes down.

You don’t need better or bigger right now. You’re working your way toward that, I know you are. But smaller and simpler is also a form of growth and I don’t want you to dismiss the ways in which you are already living your best life right now.

If you’re feeling called to consider something new for yourself, and you want to work on what version of it is good enough for now, join my 5-Day Journal Challenge to get creative with your thoughts, ideas, goals and dreams. It takes time to create the things we want in life, but we can certainly enjoy what we find along the way. I know I’m trying to do more of that every day. I hope you are too.