“I am completely over getting more ‘stuff’ … and to be honest, I don’t want to have to do more either. Yet I long for MORE. I know that sounds crazy but please don’t give me a diagnosis! I just want to understand what’s whirling around in my brain!”
I laughed. Not because her confusion was funny. Because I understood it completely.
I’ve lived through all those iterations myself.
When we first start out in our adult lives, I think it’s fairly normal to want more stuff.
When I was just 18 years old, I had worked my way up to credit manager in a department store. When people asked what I did, I joked that I reviewed applications all day from people wanting more stuff they couldn’t afford—but desperately needed in order to “keep up with the Joneses.” Whoever the Joneses are!
Thankfully, that experience moderated my own need for “stuff” simply because everyone else had it. Or my need to have a designer label on everything I wore, carried, drove or owned.
But then I went through another phase.
DO MORE.
My dad was an extraordinarily hard worker. His “doing more” helped lift our family out of poverty. And somewhere along the way, I learned something else: Doing more earned Dad’s approval.
It’s probably no surprise that I had a résumé worthy of a 20-year career before I turned 30!
I still believe deeply in hard work. But thankfully, my life is no longer driven by doing more.
And then came something entirely different.
A longing for MORE.
Interestingly, it emerged around the same time I began letting go of my need to “do more” for my dad’s approval. That belief had been operating unconsciously on my hard drive for years. Until I identified it and began reprogramming it, I didn’t realize how much of my life it had been driving.
By then, I had done significant healing work. But I didn’t want that healing to stop with me. I wanted to give it away. After all, I had made a bargain with God years earlier: “If You will help me heal, I’ll pass it on.”
But eventually it became even deeper than that. I honestly couldn’t bear the thought of other people having to search as long, fight as hard, and spend as many years as I had trying to find their way to healing.
That was my longing for MORE.
Not more stuff.
Not more accomplishments.
Not more letters after my name.
Not more things to prove.
I wanted more of what had grown in me to successfully make it out of me … and into others!
So when my client described that strange tension—I don’t want more things. I don’t want more to do. But I still want MORE—I understood her completely.
And I shared three things with her that I’d like to share with you.
1. The longing for MORE does not require you to save the world.
“I truly want to make a difference,” she told me, “but I’m not powerful enough or influential enough to change the world!”
I knew exactly what she meant.
When that longing first began stirring in me, I was barely emerging from my own terror of life.
I had just begun singing some lead parts with a group that traveled across the country. Between songs, I would sometimes slip out between songs and throw up because my anxiety was so intense. My hands trembled so badly I could hardly hold the microphone still enough to sing into it.
How on earth was I supposed to change the world?
What I didn’t understand then was: I DIDN’T HAVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD. I JUST HAD TO CHANGE “MY WORLD.”
At the time, I had served at summer camps for deaf children in Louisiana, Hawaii and Washington state. I knew deaf kids in New York deserved that same kind of experience. So, because New York was our home base, I created a camp there.
Thirty-two kids came. Thirty-two. I didn’t change the world. But for those 32 kids, we created something that hadn’t been there before.
And perhaps for a parent who watched a child come home with new confidence, something changed.
Perhaps a friendship began that mattered.
Perhaps a child discovered something about himself or herself that lasted long after summer ended.
I will never know how far every ripple traveled. And that’s the point.
You don’t have to know how far the ripple travels for you to make the first splash.
Sometimes we dismiss what we can do because it isn’t big enough to qualify as “changing the world.” But perhaps that’s the wrong assignment.
Find your world.
Your family.
Your neighborhood.
Your workplace.
Your church.
Your classroom.
Your community.
The person sitting across from you who needs something life has taught you how to give.
You don’t need seven billion people.
You need the part of the world your life can actually touch.
That camp was part of mine. And those 32 kids? They were my MORE.
1. The longing for MORE does not require you to change professions.
“I love what I do,” my client told me. “I’m a marketing executive, and I really don’t want to leave it. But the environment is toxic. I just wish I could change that. But who am I?”
I loved what she shared.
Because when the longing for MORE begins stirring, it’s easy to assume we’re supposed to blow up our current lives.
Quit the job.
Move somewhere new.
Start an entirely different career.
Make some enormous dramatic change so everyone—including us—knows we’re finally “living our purpose.”
Not necessarily.
Sometimes MORE requires leaving something behind: an addiction, an unhealthy pattern, endless scrolling, a destructive relationship with food, or another habit that is keeping us small.
But MORE does not automatically require a new profession, a new zip code, or a new life.
Sometimes your MORE is waiting right where you already are.
My client’s story became a beautiful illustration. Her workplace really was toxic. Rather than leave a profession she loved, she asked permission to lead a “lunch and learn” about creating a healthier workplace culture.
One lunch.
One room.
One decision to pour something she carried into the world immediately around her.
It made an impact.
Her company had offices nationwide, and eventually she was invited to present the material in other locations. Ultimately, she created a video series that became required viewing for new employees.
Think about that.
She didn’t have to abandon her world to find her purpose. SHE BROUGHT MORE INTO THE WORLD SHE ALREADY OCCUPIED. And in doing so, she changed it.
Sometimes the question isn’t:
“Where do I need to go?”
Sometimes it’s: “What do I carry in me that the place I’m already in needs?”
3. The longing for MORE does not necessarily require six years of graduate school.
“Thank God I didn’t leave my job and go back for a master’s degree in psychology,” my client shared with me. “I’m sure I would have loved the coursework. Before we started meeting, I thought I would have to become a credentialed psychologist to really make a difference.”
I understand that one, too. People have asked me whether, if I had it to do all over again, I would still pursue five degrees.
We can all be brilliant Monday-morning quarterbacks! The truth? I don’t know.
My education has been enormously valuable to me, and there are things I could not ethically or professionally do without appropriate education and credentials.
But I also know that some of my relentless pursuit of achievement was tangled up with that old “DO MORE” programming.
And here’s the distinction I wish more people understood:
Training matters.
Expertise matters.
Credentials matter when the work requires them.
But a credential is not what gives your life permission to matter.
If your longing is to become one of the world’s greatest heart-transplant surgeons, please—GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL!
But if your longing is to touch a heart…
Sit with someone who’s grieving.
Encourage someone who’s ready to quit.
Mentor someone coming behind you.
Share wisdom you paid dearly to learn.
Make a child feel seen.
Help someone believe there might be another side to what they’re walking through.
You don’t need letters after your name to begin. You need something to give. And chances are … life has already grown most of it in you.
*****
MAYBE THE LONGING ISN’T FOR MORE. Maybe that’s what we’ve misunderstood. We hear that whisper: “There has to be MORE…” We assume it’s asking us to GET MORE.
So we acquire. But It doesn’t work. Then we assume it’s asking us to DO MORE. So we accomplish. eThat doesn’t quieten it either.
Because perhaps the invitation was never:
GET MORE.
Or:
DO MORE.
Perhaps the invitation was: BECOME MORE OF WHO YOU ALREADY ARE.
And then… GIVE MORE OF WHO YOU’VE BECOME.
Maybe the longing isn’t evidence that something is missing from your life. Maybe it’s evidence that something in you is ready to come out.
The wisdom.
The compassion.
The courage.
The understanding.
The creativity.
The leadership.
The encouragement.
The hard-earned truth that you know because you lived it.
Perhaps your life has been growing roots in places you thought were only dark. Perhaps there’s fruit from those roots now.
And perhaps somebody, somewhere, needs what you’ve grown.
You don’t have to save the world.
You don’t necessarily have to leave your career.
You don’t need another degree simply to earn permission.
You can begin with one much smaller … and much more powerful … question: WHAT IS IN ME NOW THAT SOMEONE ELSE NEEDS?
Ohhhh … And when you begin answering that question? You may discover that the MORE you’ve been longing for was never another thing to acquire.
It was something in you waiting to be poured out.
And perhaps that whisper you’ve been hearing isn’t telling you that your life isn’t enough. Perhaps it’s reminding you: YOU’RE NOT DONE.
Stay close by and tuned in.
We have some bridges to build.
With Love & “Become MORE” Hugs!
Dr. Neecie