I’ve eaten meals that cost less than a few dollars and have been fortunate to eat meals that cost more than a month’s rent, in cities all over the world. I’ve sat on plastic stools on the side of the road in Bangkok, watching Jay Fai crack eggs into a roaring wok, goggles on, a blower feeding flames that climb the sides of the pan, moving with the confidence of someone who has repeated the same motion ten thousand times. That crab omelet—cooked over blistering heat, served without ceremony—brought me more joy than I’ve ever felt in dining rooms lined with leather banquettes, caviar bumps, and menus that read like a price index.
In many high-end dining rooms, you’re surrounded by ceremony—by performance, posture, and a kind of quiet agreement that the experience must be special because of what you paid. You find yourself auditioning, subtly posturing for the tables around you, often less comfortable with the person directly across from you than with the idea of being seen. You wear a front, a mask, convincing yourself that the price validates the pleasure, even when your taste buds tell you otherwise.
But in a four-table restaurant in a small village in Morocco, there is no such negotiation. No theater. No validation loop. The ingredients weren’t flown in that morning from a Japanese fish market. The bread was baked in the oven that same day, and the herbs were picked from the garden just outside the kitchen door. You know the moment the food hits your mouth. The grin spreads from ear to ear, or everything simply stops—the noise, the thoughts, the need to assess. In that instant, it’s undeniable. The food doesn’t need to justify itself. It just is.
I was reminded of this again in northern Thailand, at a small indigo-dyeing workshop run by a family who had practiced the craft for generations. An older woman worked quietly at the vats, her hands stained blue, her movements unhurried and exact. She was well into her eighties. When I asked her daughter why she still worked, the answer wasn’t necessity. Once, it had been—there were no other options then. But now her family was well provided for, their future secure. She continued because the work brought her joy. The art was her trade, and the trade had become her language. She no longer dyed cloth for money; she dyed it because it was who she was. Watching her, it became clear that fulfillment doesn’t always arrive when work ends—but when work finally belongs to you.
We spend our lives reaching—constantly convinced that more, better, rarer will finally quiet something inside us. This has been a recurring theme in my writing, and in my life. I know, intellectually, that what I have is enough, and yet I still chase elevated experiences, higher price tags, the promise that the next meal, the next place, the next version will deliver something lasting. It rarely does. I’ve yet to fully learn the lesson, but the one I keep returning to—again and again—is this: what I have is enough. And more often than not, I’m reminded of it not by luxury, but by people—often those with little interest in performance and nothing to prove.
Recently, that reminder came in the form of a small child walking the beach with her brother and mother. She smiled at me when we passed, and again when we parted—an honest, warm smile, unguarded and unperformed. Later that day, as we left the beach, our taxi driver mentioned the girl and suggested she might be being exploited, that there must be something darker beneath what we had seen. Not long after, a young boy approached offering us a coconut. His Spanish was careful, practiced. His pants were worn through at the knee and cuff. He carried himself with a seriousness beyond his years, a sense of responsibility he hadn’t asked for but carried anyway. And still, there was that same genuine smile. We rarely know the stories of the people we pass. We project narratives onto them—fear, pity, suspicion—often to protect ourselves from sitting with complexity. But everyone is fighting a different fight, carrying a different weight. And somehow, in the midst of it all, they remind us of what we forget: enough doesn’t always look like abundance.
I’ve seen this truth repeated across the world. I’ve been to Dubai—one of the richest cities on earth—where everything gleams, ambition rises in steel and glass, and excess is not hidden but celebrated. It is impressive, undeniable in its scale and confidence. And yet, for all its wealth, it feels strangely hollow. A city designed to be admired rather than felt. Interactions are transactional. Experiences are curated. Luxury is loud. There is abundance everywhere, but little that lingers—little that humbles, little that roots you to the people who live there.
In contrast, some of the poorest places I’ve traveled have offered me the richest moments of connection—not because of scarcity, but because of presence. Real interactions with real people, unfiltered and unperformed. You feel it immediately—the soul of a place. You can hear it in the cadence of conversation, taste it in food made with care rather than spectacle, and in the right kitchens, you can even smell it. Spices bloomed slowly in oil. Bread baked because it must be. Meals cooked not to impress, but to sustain, to gather, to remember.
I want to be careful here. This isn’t a romanticization of hardship, nor a suggestion that struggle is noble or that anyone living with less wouldn’t trade places if given the chance. I’m deeply aware that the ability to travel, to leave, to choose simplicity rather than have it imposed, is itself a form of privilege.
Security matters. Comfort matters. Stability matters. So does something more basic: knowing where your next meal is coming from—knowing there will be enough to go around, enough for every plate at the table, without asking anyone to sacrifice for another. Knowing your children will be fed. Knowing tomorrow won’t bring immediate danger.
What I’m questioning isn’t whether those things are desirable—it’s whether, once we have enough of them, we mistake accumulation for fulfillment. Somewhere along the way, many of us stop noticing how much we already have. We chase upgrades instead of gratitude. We confuse convenience with meaning
I’ve come to believe that truly seeing the world requires a kind of emotional openness most of us are taught to avoid. To stay present—to not look away from contradiction, inequality, generosity, and struggle—means letting it all register. It changes you. It complicates the easy stories we tell ourselves. And while that awareness can be unsettling, I’ve found it also sharpens gratitude. It makes moments of kindness feel louder. It makes enough feel clearer.
I am still learning this lesson. Still chasing, still reaching, still occasionally mistaking cost for value. But the world keeps offering constant corrections to my navigation—through a smile on a beach, a boy selling coconuts, a woman staining cloth blue long after she no longer needs to. And I’m beginning to suspect that contentment isn’t something you arrive at once and for all, but something you practice—again and again—by paying attention.
