How Much Is Enough?

How Much Is Enough?
"Enoughness" doesn't mean voluntary poverty - it means discovering who you really are
excepted from an article byVicki Robin from What Is Enough? In Context article #26), http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/Robin2.htm

If I knew that everyone in the world would have enough if I had only essential things, would this be enough for me? Where does necessity end and excess begin? There are a few consistent qualities in the lives of people who have come to know how much is enough for them:

1. They have a sense of purpose larger than their own needs, wants and desires. Desires are infinite. Fill one desire and another emerges. A sense of purpose, though, sorts real needs from whims and preferences and directs your attention to only those things that will really serve your mission - whether the "mission" is raising children, a garden, money or consciousness.

2. They can account for their money. They know where it comes from and where it goes. There's a sense of clarity that comes from such precision and truthfulness. If you don't know how much you have, you can never have enough.

3. They have an internal yardstick for fulfillment. Their sense of "enoughness" isn't based on what others have or don't have (keeping up with the Joneses). It's based on a capacity to look inside and see if something is really adding to their happiness, or is just more stuff to store, insure, fix, forget about and ultimately sell in a garage sale.

4. They have a sense of responsibility for the world, a sense of how their lives and choices fit into the larger social and spiritual scheme of things.

From these findings, I've developed a pledge that may help guide people in finding peace with what they have and what they need:
I pledge to discover how much is enough for me to be truly fulfilled, and to consume only that.

I pledge to be part of the discovery of how much would be enough for everyone not only to survive but to thrive, and to find ways for them to have access to that.

Through this commitment to restraint and justice, I am healing my life and am part of the healing of the world.

"Enoughness" isn't something to "live up to" - it's something to discover through the process of truthful and compassionate living.