For me to be rich, you don’t have to become poor

A little closer to an abundance mindset for a better now

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

Last week, a friend and I remembered how the Corona pandemic started — and how supermarkets and drugstores ran out of toilet paper. 
Luckily most people have come to their senses and stopped buying toilet paper in bulk.

It’s worthwhile noting that there was never too little toilet paper, actually. But somehow people’s fear of toilet paper scarcity under the pressure of a new threat — the Corona pandemic — made everyone a little more crazy than usual.

A funny memory amongst all the dark sides of our lives with the Coronavirus. But, there is also a lesson to this: 

We were fearing the lack of something that was actually there in sufficient quantity.

Our fear made us buy more. In turn, others felt more scarcity and would also buy more when they had a chance. A spiral was created that ended up making the situation worse.

The fear of scarcity is a very humane one. 

And it doesn’t only affect our need for toilet paper. It’s actually something that’s with us most of the time: 

Our fear is to take the short straw.

A lot of us have “lists” or point systems in our heads. We compare: 

How much do I have? How much does someone else have? Who has more? How can I get more?

We also like to use these lists in our relationships. We count how many things we did for someone and how much we received in return. Conflicts occur when the list is perceived to get out of balance.

Using these mental lists makes us miserable though. When we compare ourselves with each other, there will always be someone who seems to have more. We get stuck in our fear of scarcity.

If you want to try a different approach you will need to change your perspective from a scarcity to an abundance mindset.

Life is not a zero-sum game. If you think about it, there is actually plenty out there for everybody (Blaz Kos made a nice overview you can look at in detail at: https://agileleanlife.com/abundance-mindset/)

“There are around 7,000,000,000 people in the world, all your potential lovers, spouses, friends, social groups to join etc.

There is more than 4,000,000,000,000 USD in circulation (M0). Let’s not even mention all the virtual money and other material assets (land, gold etc.).

There are around 1,000,000,000 webpages and more than 130,000,000 books you can learn from — and more than a million books and new webpages published every day.

There are more than 190 countries you can travel to and around 2,000,000 cities worldwide.

There are more than 200 different types of hobbies, more than 1000 different sports, more than 70 religions and belief systems, more than 30 different types of art, and so on.

You can buy the cheapest smartphone for around 30$.”

The question is what you put your attention to, how you perceive the things that you already have, and how good you are at seeing opportunities and using them.

Start to concentrate on the abundance in your life:

1. Make a list of everything you have in life, including people, things, abilities, skills, strength, etc. 
   Take a moment to appreciate all of them.
2. We tend to forget that we are responsible for our own well-being. Look inside. Understand your needs. Take care of yourself. Don’t wait for anyone to ‘save’ you. You will have to choose what and who you spend your time with. Time is our biggest asset in this life. Make it count for you.
3. Increase your capacity of love, giving, and receiving. Know and believe that you and others deserve all the good things.

A feeling of true abundance comes from appreciating what is there, here and now. Or as Chérie Carter-Scott said it: 

“You already have and are enough; revel in your own interior abundance and you will never need to look elsewhere.”