Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.

Sheehy laments how modern life turns “enough” into a moving target—achievement, body image, wealth, and even virtue become competitive metrics that can never be fully satisfied. By imagining an “award” for grasping sufficiency, she satirizes a culture that rewards striving more than contentment. The turn to “self-respect” reframes adequacy as an inner standard rather than an external scoreboard: when one’s dignity and values are intact, the craving for additional validation loses its grip. The quote thus argues for a psychological and ethical threshold—knowing when to stop measuring oneself against others—and suggests that self-respect is the stable foundation from which genuine satisfaction and responsible living can follow.