When Did a Treat Become More?

Last night, I ate one of the finest meals I have ever eaten.

Seven courses, an amuse-bouche and petit fours. Beautifully cooked food, exceptional ingredients and extraordinary service. I also had the absolute pleasure of meeting Michel Roux Jr., which made an already special evening even more memorable.

It was, without question, a treat.

This morning, however, I found myself wondering what exactly made it one.

I woke feeling lethargic. My stomach hurt. My heart was racing. My body was very clearly telling me that, however wonderful the food had been, I had given it considerably more than it needed.

That is not a criticism of the food or the experience. Quite the opposite. The food was exceptional. I loved the evening and I am very glad I experienced it.

It was simply more than I needed.

When did “treat yourself” come to mean “give yourself more”?

More food, more courses, more expensive, more luxurious, more indulgent. We rarely describe treating ourselves in terms of enough.

Yet how strange is that?

At some point during last night's meal, I must have crossed an invisible line between enjoying something wonderful and consuming more than my body actually wanted. I cannot tell you exactly when.

Perhaps that is the interesting part, because there was always something else coming. Another course, another flavour, another beautifully presented plate, another little surprise. Until eventually there was simply no room for anything else.

It is an unusually literal example of something I have been thinking about a lot recently.

What happens when we lose our sense of enough?

There is always a next

Food makes this incredibly easy to see because eventually our bodies intervene. We live surrounded, however, by things that do not have such an obvious stopping point.

There is always another thing we could buy, another achievement we could chase, another improvement we could make, another goal we could set, another episode we could watch or another post we could scroll to. There is always another version of ourselves we could be working towards.

There is nearly always a next.

If we become accustomed to looking for it, when exactly do we experience satisfaction with this?

I wonder whether we have become so good at pursuing more that we are becoming less practised at recognising enough.

Enough is not the same as less

This is where the conversation can easily go wrong. Enough can sound like restriction, settling, lowering expectations, losing ambition or choosing the smaller life.

I do not see it that way at all.

I am ambitious. I am curious. I love new experiences. I want to learn, grow, achieve and explore. I certainly do not want to spend my life saying no to extraordinary experiences because I have decided that wanting more is somehow wrong.

I would choose last night's experience again.

That matters, because this is not about creating another set of rules for ourselves. It is about choice.

There is a difference between consciously choosing extravagance because an experience matters to us and endlessly consuming more because we have forgotten how to recognise satisfaction.

Enough does not have to mean that nothing more is available. Perhaps enough is simply the point at which more stops adding something valuable to the experience.

What actually made it a treat?

This morning I have been thinking about which parts of last night really made it special.

Was it seven courses, or was it eating food prepared with extraordinary skill and care? Was it the quantity, or was it the anticipation? Was it the petit fours, or was it meeting Michel Roux? Was it having more and more placed in front of me, or was it sharing an unusual experience with someone I love?

Perhaps we sometimes confuse the amount of something with the value of it.

That extends far beyond food.

A weekend can be packed with so many things we “want” to do that we return needing a rest. We can buy ourselves something as a treat and then immediately start thinking about the next thing we would like. We can achieve something we have worked towards for months and barely allow ourselves to experience the satisfaction before setting another target.

We can give ourselves an evening scrolling because we deserve to switch off, only to emerge from it more tired and overstimulated than when we began.

More is always available. Satisfaction requires something different. It requires us to notice.

How does enough feel?

Perhaps that is the question I am most interested in. Not, how much should I have? Rather, how do I know when I have had enough?

Those are very different questions. One looks outside ourselves for a rule. The other asks us to pay attention to ourselves.

Perhaps that is why this has become so interesting to me as a coach.

Coaching is not about somebody else deciding what enough should look like for you. Your enough will not necessarily look anything like mine.

Enough money, success, work, possessions, recognition, food, achievement or busyness. Even enough self-improvement.

The interesting work is uncovering what sits underneath the constant pull towards next. What are we hoping the next thing will give us? What are we afraid might happen if we stop? Can we recognise satisfaction when it arrives, and can we allow ourselves to experience it without immediately invalidating it by wanting something else?

Can we consciously choose more when we genuinely want more, rather than simply responding to a world that constantly tells us we should?

Maybe the treat is enough

Last night was wonderful. This morning my body has given me a slightly less subtle review.

I do not regret the meal. I do not wish I had stayed in my cabin and eaten something sensible instead. The experience was worth having, but it has made me wonder whether one of the greatest luxuries available to us now might not be more at all.

Perhaps it is knowing ourselves well enough to recognise the moment when something is already good, satisfying and valuable. When it is already enough.

Then having the freedom to decide what comes next.