enoughness

As Alan Durning pointed out in his book WHAT IS ENOUGH?, when someone has to walk many miles to get water for their family and carry it back on foot, that is not enough transportation resources.  At the other extreme, when we can each drive anywhere we want at any time in a single-person vehicle whose infrastructure and use seriously degrade the natural world, human communities and human health, that is too much transportation resources.  Between these two extremes, we find the space of "enough transportation resources" -- the ability to walk, ride bicycles and ride well-designed public transportation to deal with 90 percent of our mobility needs, with the occasional energy efficient car trip (often shared) to deal with rest.

This example can be applied to any area of life.

Enoughness varies with individuals and cultures, and is properly subject to debate, but almost always involves things like values, simplicity, resource efficiency, sustainability, care, the satisfaction of deep needs (as opposed to shallow conditioned desires) and non-material abundance (love, joy, community, beauty, creativity, learning, etc.).  Ideally, enoughness provides a deeply satisfying and sustainable life with little or no degradation of surrounding Life.

Gandhi suggested that whatever wealth we have beyond that needed to satisfy our basic needs (enoughness) properly belongs to the community. 

Many people think that what we earn or have beyond enoughness should be given to others as charity.  It may be that the evolutionary perspective offers a somewhat different option:  A personal and collective ethic of enoughness preserves and frees up resources that can be used to further conscious evolution.