Is life a struggle, where you have to hold on to what you've got at any cost, lest you lose it? Is it a competition, where more for someone else means less for you? Is it a maze set with traps, where you never quite have everything you need?
This is the scarcity mindset. It's common and its side effects are well known - it brings stress, worry, and anxiety. This scarcity mindset is a big part of what drives materialism.
I saw the threat of loss around every corner. I saw material loss, where not earning enough meant not having the things I 'needed', as well as loss of esteem, where others would think less of me for not having enough things.
Starting with scarcity of things, the mind extrapolates. Surely, if there is scarcity in the realm of the material, then there must be other scarcities in life. Scarcity of time. Scarcity of love. Scarcity of affection. Scarcity of peace and happiness.
Eventually, every moment of occasional happiness was accompanied by an emptiness at knowing that the happiness would end. That I would lose it. The occasional moment of true affection from my increasingly distant partner would leave me feeling despair, because I knew that it would be lost again so soon.
The thing about life is that perception becomes reality.
To fix the scarcity mindset, you must make one clear decision - you must reject it, and choose instead a mindset of abundance.
I now choose to see that we live in an abundant world. We live in a human world, where our capacity for kindness and love is limitless, and where kindness begets kindness and love begets love. That's not to say that that things don't go to shit from time to time, but that shit is the occasional occurrence rather than the norm.
How do you develop the abundance mindset?
It all starts with you. If you see scarcity in yourself - if you see a lack of capability in yourself, if you have a shortage of love and kindness toward yourself, this is what you will see in the world.
If, on the other hand, you recognise your own abundance, you will see abundance in the world. If you recognise the wealth that is your experience and if you show yourself love and kindness, you will have what you need.
This change of perspective is a part of why I want to live a more minimal life. It has helped me to hone in on what is important to me, and to see self-care as a core part of my everyday life, rather than something for special occasions. It has shown me that I have what I need internally to function, without needing constant external validation of my worth as a person - including external validators like a big TV and lots of shoes.
How do you choose to view the world?
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