Enough

Are you paralyzed by the fear of failure? Well, you are not alone. Unfortunately, this overwhelming fear prevents so many of us from moving forward and achieving our goals-or even just surviving.  

Enough is a heartfelt memoir, a firsthand account of the author's endless sacrifices necessitated by a perpetual cycle of bad choices and regrettable relationships. However, whether through divine intervention or just sheer resilience, there is a happy ending to her story. She not only survived, she thrived. 

"Despite all the heartache, abuse, and suffering, I never lost hope. Hope motivated me to keep going, despite the fact that every fiber in my fragile being screamed for me to stop, to surrender. It provided the tenacious resilience necessary to triumph over unrelenting adversity, endless failure, and perhaps more importantly, my own intense feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing." 

From humble beginnings in a New York City (NYC) housing project, M.A. Arnold grew up like so many other children of working-class households in the sixties. She was the oldest of five children (three boys and two girls), which was not an anomaly among typical Irish Catholic families. 

Several years later, in September 1968, her 38-year-old Mother tragically passed away. This was, without a doubt, the single most traumatic and life-changing event of her life. She experienced a dramatic character metamorphosis, but, in reverse, from hero to zero, high achiever to no achiever, well-adjusted to unstable and depressed, winner to loser. Up until then she was outgoing, popular, intelligent, friendly, confident, a natural leader. But after her mother, who in her opinion, was akin to the Virgin Mary, died...she died, too.  

With her family's support, she learned to adjust to living without her Mother. It wasn't easy, growing up without a mother to guide and protect her. As a result, she was always searching for someone to fill that enormous void. (Most of her close friends were older women.) 

Unfortunately, she learned a lot of things the hard way. When M.A. Arnold was just 17 years old, she defiantly chose to embark upon a very different journey than the one ordained by her birthright as a family's firstborn child. Suffice it to say, making bad decisions was a skill she practiced over and over throughout the years, until she eventually became quite proficient at it. Against her family's wishes, she married someone she knew for merely four months. What possessed her to do this? She quickly learned the hard way that "Life does not get better by chance; it gets better by choice." (Jim Rohn) 

This was the beginning of the next phase in her life, that of a wife and mother. M.A. Arnold had four children in the short span of five years. What could have been, no should have been, a time filled with loving, happy memories, turned out to be an absolute insufferable nightmare for her. But, despite everything that happened to her, to her innocent children, she never lost hope. Hope that life would get better because she was enough. Just as she was. Enough. This new self-awareness was the impetus she needed to survive. 

"If you take anything from my story, I hope it's the realization that no matter how many mistakes or bad decisions you make, you are absolutely worthy of love. You are enough."