Topic for this month's circle: Scarcity and Abundance
Diane and I collaborated over email and this is what came up:
A lot of people are worried about scarcity as the economy continues to slow down and there is talk that we are headed (or are currently in) a recession. The government will be sending out tax rebates to help stimulate the economy by encouraging us to go shopping. The simple living network is protesting this – (see here for full details)
They state:
"The United States cannot spend its way out of its financial difficulties. We do not need a short-term solution for long-term problems. We need fundamental, far-reaching change to a broken and corrupt system. The following are no longer sustainable:
- consumption as an economic solution,
- deficit spending,
- predatory lending,
- unaffordable health care,
- tax cuts for the wealthy, and
- war over oil and religious ideology.
It is difficult to imagine why anyone would help reinforce the behavior of a broken government or stimulate an out of control economy by purchasing more stuff and junk."
Diane was skimming Eckhard Tolle's book, A New Earth. He talks about abundance, stating that, "Abundance comes only to those who already have it.... Both abundance and scarcity are inner states that manifest as your reality."
Looking up “Abundance thinking” online, I found: Practicing Abundance By Monica C. Pilman I recommend reading the whole thing (it’s only three pages). Here is a brief excerpt:
"There’s a kind of thinking that we have probably all engaged in at some time in our lives, and that we were engaged in that morning we were both laid off: scarcity thinking. The three premises of scarcity thinking are: “there isn’t enough”, “more is better”, and “that’s just the way it is.” One of the great problems of scarcity thinking is that many if not most people really don’t know of any other way to think about the world. Scarcity thinking generates intense fear, and anyone living in fear is impoverished, no matter how much money they have. But there is another way: practicing abundance. The three premises of abundance thinking are: “money is like water”, “what you appreciate, appreciates”, and “collaboration creates prosperity.”
… In my opinion, scarcity thinking is at the root of economic injustice. The first premise of scarcity, that “there isn’t enough” causes some to think that it is okay to marginalize certain people economically, because if there isn’t enough for everyone then some people have to end up on the short end of the stick. “More is better”, scarcity premise number two, causes many to believe that people who have more must somehow be better. The third premise of scarcity – “that’s just the way it is” says that this can’t be changed and things are hopeless. Rising above the fears generated by scarcity thinking and practicing abundance instead isn’t easy. Even in a rich society like ours, not everyone is rich, and it is very easy to give in to “there’s not enough”, “more is better”, and “that’s just the way it is.” Even the best of people sometimes find themselves caught up in scarcity fears, and make decisions that do not properly nurture the things most important in their lives, or find reasons to forgo collaborating with others so that together they can generate abundance."
(FYI – she takes these three principles of scarcity and abundance thinking from Lynne Twist’s book “The Soul of Money”)
Questions to think about for this month’s circle:
- What would happen to our economy, our world if we did make a "planetary shift" and changed the way the economy is structured?
- Is this something that is possible?
- What would that look like?
- What do we fear will happen?
- What do we hope will happen?
- When do we bring "scarcity thinking" into our own lives?
- How do we each bring "abundance thinking" into our own lives?
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