Abundance vs. Scarcity

Three premises of scarcity thinking are: “there isn’t enough”, ‘more is better”, and “that’s just the way it is.” We start to learn the Theory of Scarcity very early in life. There are only five slots open for the junior high cheerleading squad or for the starting lineup on the basketball team. This type of thinking is reinforced over and over again throughout life. 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.

There is, however, another way: practicing abundance. Three premises of abundance thinking are: “money is like water”, “what you appreciate, appreciates”, and “collaboration creates prosperity.” The first premise, “Money is like water”, isn’t about how much you have, but about what you do with what you have, whether money flows through your life one drip at a time or whether you command the mighty Mississippi River of money.

The second premise of abundance thinking is that “what you appreciate,appreciates” To truly practice abundance thinking, you might use your investment money to reflect your values, by making your investments in ways that water the things you want to cherish and promote in the world. By giving the best of yourself to those things you love, those things appreciate – which means they grow, they become more in ways that really matter.

If you are a scarcity thinker, you aren’t thinking about what seeds your money will water. You’re thinking about scarcity premise number one – not having enough, and scarcity premise number two – that having more will be better. So you might invest your money in whatever funds return the best rates of interest, without regard for the type of seeds those funds are nurturing in the world.

The third premise of abundance is that “collaboration creates prosperity.” The restaurant business discovered the Theory of Abundance years ago. Have you ever watched a new McDonald’s going in on a previously vacant corner of your town? You can bet that it won’t be long before Wendy’s builds across the street…Burger King goes in next door with Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell just down the way. Counter-productive, you say? Less customers for each restaurant? NO! The savvy marketing teams in each of these restaurant chains realize that when that corner of town becomes known as “restaurant row,” more consumers will be drawn to that area every day. They will decide when they get there which fast food will satisfy their craving today – but in the end, all the restaurants will profit from the increased and steady traffic.

Back in human history, natural resources like pasture land did not belong to any one person, but were held in common by everyone in the community and were called “the commons.” The tragedy of the commons is that some people start thinking “There’s not enough grass in the pasture for everyone’s cows, so I’ll have to make sure I get enough for mine!” And there it is: scarcity premise number one in action. And then the shared resource gets over-utilized, until others begin to fear for their own enough-ness. Either war breaks out, or the resource once held in common is taken over by a scarcity-thinking overlord in order to preserve it for his own use.

The scarcity mentality holds that there is only a finite amount of wealth in the world and that when one person gets some, some other person loses it. The abundance mentality holds that wealth is being created all the time by free people who are highly motivated. Whenever a person achieves or acquires something, it causes more wealth and more prosperity for more people.

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.

But, realising that the world is a place of abundance is an incredibly powerful thing, and it’s well worth investing some time and effort into cultivating this mindset.