Am I Enough?
The origins of our Agreement
In the spring of 2018, I met a man named Daniel Matalon who is the complete opposite to me in every way possible. Daniel is not only 20 years older than me but also a non-practicing Jew, Liberal, never Trumper, and seemed to just want to battle things out with people online. I am a middle-aged woman, Devout Christian, conservative, and voted for Trump the first time around. I was going through the worst of my failing marriage and took to taking any debates I could on Facebook. It was the way I could escape the pain and rejection I was going through and it gave me a way to sharpen my mind instead of falling deeper into the depression I was going through. Debating on line was the only source of validation I had in my life at the time.
Daniel and I spent the next few days just battling it out on hot topic buttons like abortion, gun rights, liberty, human rights, immigration, and any and every topic that would cause people to want to fight and not make agreements. I was more than happy to accommodate as my Scottish side loves to duke it out in debates. I always have a “bring it” mentality when it comes to debates. But Daniel Matalon was not just debating, he was looking for something more. He was looking for someone who was willing to find agreements on these topics. His methods were “different” and we tended to argue more than anything but he kept asking how we could find agreement on these topics.
How do you find agreements with a pro-life and a woman’s rights advocate? I went through my regular historical documentation about how abortions are not women's health and that the majority of women felt pressured into having them and regretted them. I copy pasted with enthusiasm any and everything I could find to back my case up on how he was wrong and I was right. I felt justified in calling him names and downplaying his side because he was obviously wrong. I felt pride in my ability to read through what he sent and search for something to diminish or refute his claims. This was fun for me. It was release, freedom, validation, and pride. I would spend hours just duking it out to FEEL better about myself.
A month went by and in one of our Abortion debates, he said “I love life! Human life is as valuable as FUCK!!” I paused and said, “I want that on a T-Shirt”. Things started to change from there. We finally agreed on something. The FIRST agreement was that human life is valuable. I walked away from my computer and sat with that for a while.
All human life is valuable, said the liberal. This revelation was in stark contrast to my reality
All human life is valuable, said the liberal. This revelation was in stark contrast to my reality. My husband at the time was dealing with severe PTSD, being a 16-year vet who went through the shock and awe after 9-11. His form of self-medication was affairs, drugs, and taking out his anger on me and the kids. The constant instability made even breathing hard let alone going to school and taking care of our two kids under 3 years old. Everything came to a climax in July of that year when he finally hit me for the last time and left. I sat there with the babies and with my face swollen from where he hit me. I could either survive or give up and die. Daniel Matalon would call this a history or choices moment. I would have those a lot in the coming years.
I had one month to do something, my ex left right after we paid for the rent. ( I don't know if he planned that so he did not feel guilty leaving us but it was a blessing he did ). The first thing I did was pray, then I found a shelter that would take us. I filed charges against my ex for assault. I felt conflicted about this but I had to stop making excuses for his behavior. It was not right what he was doing. I managed with the grace of God and the help of my church and my sisters, to get what little we had into storage. I then got an extension on my final for College, signed up for the next semester's classes, got the kids into daycare, filed for a divorce, filed for a protection order, and got a job with the college tutoring math.
Daniel told me to seek agreements and look for any and all agreements I could find. I felt like a shattered vase just nearly holding it together. Every time someone would talk to me it felt like I was going to fall apart. I will not downplay my faith in God in all of this, and it was God who held me and walked me through my pain, it was my faith in God that got me to where I am today. Daniel was a strong supportive voice in all of this too.
Do I stay a victim or do I move on?
The shelter room we were in was no bigger than a closet. Two bunk beds side by side with barely enough room to squeeze between them and a single dresser. The smell was a combination of the cheapest hotel imaginable and whatever was stuck to the rug which was black with lord knows what on it. I held my babies in my arms and wept. Two large suitcases leaned up against the wall in the small room, they held what I could take with us. The history of a family is reduced to just two suitcases. This was the most terrifying moment of my life, not knowing what would happen. I just sat and breathed and prayed. The reality of what had happened replayed over and over in my mind.
Three other women resided in the shelter with their children. Most of them had been there multiple times from what the social workers told me. The other women were withdrawn and angry, desperate and hurt. We would often give each other the all-knowing "look" and mostly stayed by ourselves. This was normal for women to be a revolving door back and forth between the shelters and bad relationships. I looked around and said this will not be me.
I was broken, beaten, sad, depressed, angry, and my pride was shattered. Daniel’s words kept creeping back into my mind about scarcity, about agreements, about building wealth for everyone, about a new human story. I thought if there was enough out there for people we would not need to war or be trapped in abusive relationships to stay off the streets. We would not be trapped in this cruel cycle. If the world had "enough" there would not be a need for wars, famine, poverty, or fear.
My first agreement with myself is I AM ENOUGH with God’s Help, I want to make MORE for everyone to thrive in this world not just survive, and I am going to do it with someone that I would not in a million years think I could make agreements with, Daniel Matalon, because you have to start somewhere right?
Three weeks in the shelter and the children and I moved into low-income housing. It was an 800 sqft apartment a stone's throw away from the train tracks. School was in full swing and I managed to pass my finals by the skin of my teeth. Every morning I would get up and drop the kids off at daycare and then drive the ten min to the school to tutor math, that was the only time I allowed myself to cry over what had happened. Something needed to change in the world. Is There enough? Is there enough for my kids? Am I enough for my kids?
I decided to take up this quest with Daniel Matalon and help him build this conversion of IsThereEnough. I helped him with shaping the conversation and concepts. I was trying to be more curious than condemning his points of view. ( I struggled at times and this was a “process”, my default is to battle, so this was a struggle for me to do. ) I started asking more questions than waiting to be heard. How can people of such vast backgrounds and differences find agreements, what value will this bring to people? What is the value of agreements? What is stopping people from having agreements? This became my driving force and a healing journey focused on "how can we". Can 100% of humanity survive?
After almost 7 years of researching this, the answer is a resounding YES, yes they can. Scarcity is just something made up to increase the value of something and make it more expensive. We have to agree to put the value to something, not the other way around. Would the Mona Lisa be worth $870 Million if we did not all agree it was? It is just paint and wood and the guy that painted her has done other work and there are other painters just as good as he is. Yes, Da Vinci did contribute a lot to the evolution of mankind but was he the only one? To say that no one in the history of humanity can paint as good as him is a laugh. The majority of the paintings were done by interns, any art historian would tell you that. Why do we put things on a pedestal holding on to the past and preventing humanity from evolving?
What if we make human life more valuable than these expensive pieces of art? why? Because we are!! It's the Not Enoughness in the world that is pushing this fear of lacking society. Pushing the fear of immigrants in our countries “stealing our jobs”. Fear of not having enough, not being enough, not having access to enough, and being powerless is causing problems in the world. How can we change this?
Are We Enough? Can humanity look past the scarcity in the world to possibilities? Can we find empathy for each other again and help one another thrive? We would like to believe we are.
Since working with, Daniel I have built up my skills to help develop this conversation. Reading countless books, watching countless documentaries, and teaching myself how to do web design, graphic design, project management, and app development. It's all just asking questions and finding solutions and settling on an agreement. We have come up with a set of tools that cover some not all of the problems we are finding with people and trying to make agreements and the fastest way to start this whole journey is to simply ask the question… is there enough? After that, it's how to mine for agreements and how to identify your stumbling blocks while making them with the core conversations. We are developing a whole line of books for kids on how to seek and make agreements, a course curriculum for college kids, and a set of surveys to ignite curiosity about agreement-making. This conversation is alive and evolving constantly.
I hope you enjoy your journey into seeking the answer to this question of enoughness and finding your answer.
I know I have and it has changed my life.
The first dancing nut
Sincerely
Daniel Matalon
Founder of the IsthereEnough Non-Profit
Founder of Impact launchpad
