The abundance trap.
Several years ago, while I was having dinner with a girlfriend, I commented that I liked her glasses. She told me she got several of the same pair so it would be okay if she damaged or lost them. This conversation has always stuck with me. When we have abundance of something, it seems as though we don’t always take the best care of it. When we have a lot of time, we might waste some of it. It’s only when we have a little time that we see how precious it is. When we have a lot of money, we might not be as mindful in our spending choices. When we have little money, we’re aware of what each choice means. When we have good health, we might make choices that are harsher on our bodies. We learn to cherish good health when it seems we may no longer have it.
As I was cooking dinner tonight, I used an ingredient hastily. I didn’t quite read the recipe and I thought to myself, “If I got the measurement wrong, I’ll just throw it out and start again.” The ingredient was milk. We used to never have milk in our house. Neither my husband nor I drink milk, but now that we have a toddler, we always have at least a gallon of milk at any given time. Because I knew we had extra, it seemed fine to toss it if I got it wrong. I see myself doing it all the time – I pour my son a cup of milk in the morning, and hours later, find half of it sitting on a shelf, (likely) no longer good. I throw it away, knowing that there is more. As I cooked dinner tonight, I thought of my friend and her reasoning for buying all the pairs glasses: If I have several pairs, I can be more reckless.
Perhaps you’ve found yourself in this position. Maybe you’re making more money than before or you’re in a time in your life where there is more and suddenly you feel less sensitive to checking prices, or you buy an extra of something “just to have around”. Having abundance causes us to live a little fuller and sometimes, a little more carelessly. When something is scarce, we value it. When something is abundant, we take it for granted. We tend to think in terms of “more is better”.
We remove our own scarcity and create false abundance when we use credit and loans. What if my friend could only afford one pair of glasses because she only had enough money to buy the one pair? Might her mindset of caring for them be different? If I knew that we only had so much milk for the week, would I be better about not wasting it? Absolutely.
My milk example is small, but when this is on a larger scale, it becomes even more important. With our money, we could lose years of retirement because of choices made in abundant times. On a global scale, the impact on food, the environment, and for each other is far reaching.
Sometimes abundance is anticipatory – we might not actually be abundant today, but we think that on another day, good news will come and we will be abundant (think windfalls of sorts – stimulus checks, anticipated raises or bonuses, career changes). We become cavalier in anticipation of the potential.
When you’re feeling abundant, take stock of what you have. Think about what you need. Think about ways to take care of that which you have. Work to not operate from a place of scarcity, but rather a place of contentment – knowing that you have what you need and caring for what you have. Cherish the times of abundance and save for times of less abundance. When we can keep in mind that we are working for times that might be less abundant, we will always experience some level of abundance.
I recently heard that writers write what they need to hear. Know that each post I write is something that I too grapple with and of which I need to remind myself. :)