Scarcity“Not Enough” leads to “More is Better” leads to “You” or “Me”
One of the key’s I have learned is to be sure that my heart is open and I am constantly working on giving. That I am expanded and open, with energy, joy and love flowing out. This all may sound like metaphysical mumbo jumbo. However, there is far too much research in the quantum field to show that our thinking effects the field. Even my mentor Buckminster Fuller , one of the great scientists of the 20th Century, practiced living in this way. He demonstrated over 50 plus years of life, that if he only lived for the highest good for the highest number of people, Universe would provide. He was never asset rich, but he had sufficiency. It was his inspiration that had me start my own Guinea Pig C project. When I contract, which is what happens when fear grips you, I shut down connection to Universe. Like a clam shell, nothing can get in. Sure, when we are open it is risky, as everything can get in, but disconnection kills. Interestingly I have been observing my own thoughts around the issue of money of late. For the most part I have developed quite a healthy relationship to money. I treat money with respect, I make sure I have systems in place to monitor flow, I keep on top of incoming and outgoings and I only spend what I can afford. I have learned the hard way that spending what I do not have keeps me living in the past and weighs me down, physically, emotionally and metaphysically. However, I have noticed this little residue thought that seeps into my conscious awareness at times and creates a contraction. The thought is about lack, or scarcity. About the inflow stopping. Which has got me thinking...how pervasive is this scarcity thought in my life, and in our community? I have found myself re-reading Bucky’s book, GRUNCH of Giants. A small book, relatively easy to read for Bucky, one that I have read at least 2 times previously, the first time in the early ’90’s. Back then I thought that Bucky had a little too much conspiracy theory running for my liking. Bucky was not known for making comments without having done the research, so I was surprised with some of the content. On this reading, 20 years later, I am seeing with new eyes. Ouch! One of the principles Bucky spoke of was that our economic system has entrenched in it the principle of scarcity. Like a fish breathing water, we do not even know that everything we do is built on reinforcing scarcity. We wake up in the morning to the alarm and our very first thought is that we have not had enough sleep. Our second thought is that we have so much to do we do not have enough time. It gets worse. Not enough weekends, holidays, not enough love, sex, money...I am not thin enough, fit enough, tall enough, happy enough. Then it gets bigger. There is not enough food for all, not enough petrol/oil, not enough water...we fall back in bed having not done enough, exhausted again from not enough time and not enough sleep, only to get up and do it all again. And the myth of scarcity is propagated by media and advertising. It is the very message of not having enough that gets us buying stuff that we do not need. Finally, after a life time of not enough, the message to ourselves is that I am not enough. (This can happen by the time a child is 7 years old..saturated in the messages of not enough that are pandemic in our society.) As we are dualistic human beings, the opposite of not enough is more is better. So like greedy little caterpillars eating up all the leaves, we need more to feel better about not enough. We need more food, more holidays, more square feet in our homes, more cars, more TV’s, more shoes, more market share, more money, more gizmo’s...more, more more... And the marketeers are thrilled....the economy booms on the crazy incessant unconscious response to our inbuilt scarcity beliefs. Our whole growth economy is dependent on the myth of scarcity thriving. The tragedy is that like the fish in water, we cannot even see it. And yet the myth of scarcity directly contributes to the increase in depression, emotional and financial stress, and of course a blown out budget, be it our own or our countries. When I started to consider my own deeply embedded myth of scarcity I recognised that to uproot it from my psyche would require really going against everything in our world designed to propagate it. This would require a level of vigilance and consciousness even more profound than just extracting a limiting belief. The extraction was an embedded world view, backed up with a constant bombardment of reinforced messages. Bucky was always the optimist. In GRUNCH he outlines that from about 1970 humans in Universe had crossed a threshold where there was now the unprecedented ability to provide enough food, energy, water, resources for every human, and to allow a higher standard of living than had ever been experienced before, while phasing out the use of fossil fuels and atomic energy. It no longer has to be either “you” or “me”, which is the root belief behind scarcity, it is now possible to be both “you” and “me”. However he did caution that for this to be realised would take a few decades. And we would be tested as to whether we walked this path. The principle reason he gives for a sufficient Universe is due to what he calls progressive ephemeralization. Doing more with less. That humans ability to use Mind allows us to constantly moving towards doing more with less...ultimately everything with nothing. The internet is an example of this. And that we have far more energy from the sun and all its interlinked weather behaviours, such as photosynthesis, wind, rain, waves etc.. than we will ever need. Yet the noise we mostly hear these days is even more loudly proclaiming “not enough.” We are running our of oil (true) and our lives must change. (true). Because of this we are spending billions on wars in countries that have the resources we deem as scarce. The machine of “not enough” is working overtime! However, what is not being spoken about is the resourcefulness of humans and our ability to do more with less. And this is where our focus needs to be. Its why people like David Martin has created the Global Innovations Commons. We have the know how, and the technology. And we have the power of people, which is crucial. We simply cannot wait for our governments and leaders to make the changes. We have to rally. We get to choose, and we have the means to do so more than at any other time in history. Just like the movement, Move Your Money, has the ability to break the backs of the big banks in the USA, we, the people, can choose to challenge every message about “not enough”, and focus instead on sufficiency. Enough with scarcity. We live in a sufficient Universe. And yes, we do need to change our ways, consume less, be exquisitely aware of the field effects of all of our actions, be comprehensively considerate of all that we think and do. But to run on fear of lack, this only increases the contraction and continues to enable the “you” or “me” scarcity thinking. This article was inspired by Lynne Twist, author of Soul of Money
To Return from Scarcity to New Economics
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