Enough is enough : epiphanies, voluntary simplicity & the good life

Abstract

What started as a mystery to unravel, a quest to identify how people might find a sense of ‘the good life’ through voluntary simplicity, turned into something much more. Through this ethnographic and ultimately philosophical journey, I realized the way to find a sense of the good life is through an awakening—or more dramatically, an epiphany—leading to a major paradigm shift. A new way of seeing the world created a transition away from hegemonic capitalist “work-to-spend” norms where all earthly things are simply resources, to one focused instead on the gratitudes, pleasures, and satisfactions found in “enough-ness” combined with a reverence for all earthly things as kin. This process resulted in positive identity (re)construction, even transformation, along with a new sense of congruence with the good life. Crafted as a narrative collage incorporating creative non-fiction techniques, this critical (and ultimately public) (auto)ethnography weaves together multiple voices and formats reflective of the arts-based research paradigm.