Thinking about abundance

I met Steven Covey in New York when I accompanied a friend to one of his talks. I had very little idea of who he was, other than a Mormon who wrote a book about success. I figured that he was a conservative person, a Republican probably, and gave it very little thought. Then his talk stuck with me, and I had an intense conversation with my friend about the idea of approaching life with an attitude of scarcity or abundance. At the time, I thought that thinking in terms of abundance was absolutely irresponsible considering population explosions and global warming. But now I realize that this attitude is more about how an individual relates to other people, rather than how we use and abuse our world.

In an abundant world, we give easily.

In an abundant world, we fear less from our fellow man.

In an abundant world, we don't supress the vote.

Today, Americans live in material abundance and fear others. It's an odd paradigm. I'm not sure how it plays out.

We fear that we don't have enough protection from the terrorists, we fear that our government is too indebted to be overcome, we fear that we do not have enough military to fight bigger wars, we fear that there won't be enough jobs for our children, we fear that our retirements are not going to be easy, we fear the poor and homeless (and that we might become either).

The powers that be encourage all of these fears.

There are leaders that believe we have enough, but in our culture their voices are hard to hear. Enough to protect us from terrorists, enough to fight those that have hurt us or those who still might, enough to restore a balanced budget, enough to restore military readiness, enough to provide education to every child, enough for workers to retire in comfort, enough to share with the poor and house or care for the homeless. Enough for all of us.

Many people believe that if we have enough for "us," there isn't enough for ME.

I get very sad when I think about how people fear the poor or less fortunate and how people vote for personal interests over community interests. I couldn't put my finger on it and then my husband prompted me, "Your dad showed you how people can be helped, and you grew up poor." No one knows me better than my husband.