When “Nice Enough” just isn’t…anymore

How hard are you willing to fight? How easily will you give up? How quickly do you settle?

Sam Henderson photography

When I was a baby yogi, I lived in San Francisco. During the day, I worked full time in the South Bay. In the evenings, I practiced yoga in Marin County. If you’re picturing a map in you mind’s eye, chances are your head is already spinning.

If I was going to make it to 6pm yoga class in Marin, I would have to be underway at 4pm from the South Bay…and not a moment later.

The class was my salvation. It was the soothing balm that cooled the burn of the life I did not want to be living. It was the lighthouse on the shore of the world I wanted to live in…beckoning me to show up for the work ahead and rearrange everything in my life in order to get there. I knew I wanted to devote my life personally, and professionally, to the study and teaching of yoga…and I knew that I was a long way away from that reality—experience-wise and study-wise. Plus, the lengths of driving just to get to class seemed to be a cruel reminder of just how far away I was from where I wanted to be…and how much challenging work awaited me on the path ahead.

Cue Patanjali from the Yoga Sutras—

“Practice becomes firmly established when attended to for a long period of time, without interruption, and with all earnestness.” (Sutra 1.14)

I knew I would have to keep at this for a long time…no matter how long it took…and no matter how far away the life of my dreams seemed.

Cue the helpful friends and family—

Why does it have to be that class?

Why does it have to be that teacher?

Why can’t you just take a class on your way back from work?

Indeed, one could Google yoga studios between my work and my home, and I’m certain there would have been plenty of options that would have been “nice enough.”

But I’ve never been after “nice enough.” Have you?

Look what “nice enough” gets us us in yoga…and in life—

Here’s what settling for a “nice enough” class might get you in yoga:

Loss of inspiration…then stop practicing altogether.

Or walk away with physical, emotional, or spiritual injury after a class or teacher that is not right for you.

Here’s what settling for a “nice enough” socio-political system gets us in life:

Women give up careers to raise children in a system that doesn’t support them.

Our tax dollars fund genocide.

Our veterans suffer life-changing physical, emotional, and spiritual injuries. We walk past them when they live in a tent on the sidewalks.

That’s what “nice enough” gets us. That’s what apathy gets us. That’s what ambivalence gets us. That’s what “I am separate from them” gets us. That’s what “let’s just see what happens” gets us.

Cue Patanjali from the Yoga Sutras—

“The pain that has not yet come is avoidable.” (Sutra 2.16) I recently came across another translation on Google that says “Prevent future pain from manifesting.” This means that when we see the warning signs of oppression and restriction of liberties we must act. We must not just wait and see what happens. (election year!)

Cue the talking heads—

Why can’t you just keep eating industrially-farmed animals?

Why can’t you just buy the cheaper one on Amazon?

Why does it have to be THAT vision for the collective—the one where women self-determine their own bodies and occupied territories are liberated?

The days of my two hour commute to yoga class are nearly a decade in the past, and with that particular kind of hindsight that comes only from looking in the rear view mirror, I realize now what the lesson was. Per usual, it wasn’t the handstand. It wasn’t pigeon pose. I’m grateful to that commute for showing me just how deep my reserves of strength, resilience, and high standards MUST go if I was going to arrive on the shores of that lighthouse that beckoned me so urgently towards the life I wanted to live—to the beautiful future I wanted to live in.

I will never settle for a “nice enough” yoga class. I will never settle for a “nice enough” candidate who will then turn around and tell me what to do with my body. My willingness to drive two hours to practice with an inspiring teacher, in a studio where I feel at home, on a path illuminating the way forward is the world’s most obvious metaphor for how willing I’ll be to keep fighting for the future I want to live in…because just “nice enough” clearly isn’t nice enough for any of us anymore.

Keep pointing your car towards the class that keeps you feeling inspired...even if it’s two hours away. Toward the class that’s the beacon of light illuminating the way towards the shores of the world you want to live in. If you show up in this way over an extended period of time without interruption…the pain that has not yet come is indeed avoidable. Your actions today can prevent future individual and collective pain from manifesting. Please find a yoga class that inspires you today. Please study with a teacher who tells you that chanting for freedom and liberation for all living beings is only the beginning…and not merely a box to be cursorily checked by the white “spiritual practitioner.” Drive two hours to take class with the teacher who measures your yoga report card based on the actions you take in your own life—at work, in the grocery store, in your marriage, in the election booth—as a result of your yoga practice. Do not settle for the “nice enough” yoga teacher who gives you a gold star for a practice that goes as far as urdhva dhanurasana and ends when you roll up your mat. Begin today. And keep going. And don’t stop. No matter how far away it seems. No matter how many “nice enough” wolf options conveniently present themselves to you in sheep’s clothing along the way. No matter how many well-intentioned friends and family tell you you can take the easy road and just hope that someone else will pick up the oars and row your boat to the future you want for yourself, for your family, and your community. Keep doing the work. Until you arrive at the world you want to live in.

Keep practicing until we get there. Be willing to practice every day for the rest of your life if that’s what it requires of us. It just might.

💫 Sending love, light, and hugs from,

Marisa