Abundance vs. Scarcity
We tend to think of abundance and scarcity as describing the environment we live in, but what if these are actually mindsets, not circumstances?
We live in a time and culture where the mindset of scarcity is blasted at top volume through every medium and channel possible. Why? Because the a scarcity mindset makes us buy more stuff.
We live in a time and culture where the mindset of scarcity is blasted at top volume through every medium and channel
When businesses make profit their highest priority - promoting scarcity is the shortest path to their goal. And we're eager to buy into this idea. If you believe there isn't enough to go around, then you'r going to grab as much as you can before it's gone, but this has far-reaching consequences when 300 million people are doing it.
The business world calls this consumerism and we are their prized consumers, they think of us much like livestock (and not in a good way). They've trained us to be people who are all about getting the most they can get for the least cost. The old school word for this is greed. It comes from fear that we won't have what we need. The more afraid we are, the more grabby we get, and we have to take responsibility for the fact, that we really like the sound of this lie.
The irony of this mindset, fear and greed make us blind to the fact that, in the US, we live with a level of abundance never before seen.
The tragedy is that when people living in an abundant context believe that it's actually a famine - they hoard what they have, grabbing all they can get and in the end, create real scarcity for the people who aren't as strong, or capable, or well-funded.
This is why we waste enough food to feed the world. This is why we see such intense economic disparity. This is why we buy garbage that doesn't nourish us, just because it's super-sized and scratches our scarcity itch.
Imagine how different it would be if we all embraced the mindset that there's plenty to go around. That everyone benefits if we are generous, and if we help each other. The urgency, the anxiety and the impatience melt away when if we believe that we'll have what we need.
It frees us up to problem-solve how to use our resources effectively, not just as a security blanket, hoarded for our own peace of mind, but rather as a tool to build up the community. It lightens our hearts and our waistlines when we stop clinging to things we don't actually need because we know we'll be provided for.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe that it was Andrew Carnegie intentionally spent his entire fortune before his death, out of a desire to enrich the culture and make the world a better place (which is why his name is on everything), and this is the attitude our family is aspiring to embrace.
The RealFat Life is an abundant life, but not because we have a huge amount of abundance by the culture's standards.
The RealFat Life is an abundant life, but not because we have a huge amount of abundance by the culture's standards. Because our family got started young and grew fast - and because we've ended up on a path of entrepreneurship, we are barely paying the bills each month and we have no surplus for luxuries as of the time of the writing of this post.
We trust in Gods provision and we recognize that even "barely getting by" in America is doing very well by historic standards.
Consumerism is one of the most destructive forces in our society, and I think the fear and greed that drive it are at the root of most of its evils. Scarcity makes us cross boundaries better not crossed. It makes us waste what we have, and it turns relationships into transactions and the nature into a resource to be exploited rather than a garden to be nurtured.
This theme of aspiring to an abundance mindset and lifestyle will shape every aspect of the vision we are building for our RealFat Life.
