2009 August | Get There From Here

Archive for August, 2009

Sufficiency: The Surprising Truth

Written by Jennifer on 27th August 2009

Following my 8/7 post, Scarcity: The Great Lie, I offer another excerpt from the book, The Soul of Money, by Lynn Twist. More about Lynn, the book and her work can be found at www.soulofmoney.org.

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. . .

In our relationship with money, it is using money in a way that expresses our integrity; using it in a way that expresses value rather than determines value. Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resrouces. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough. . .

I am not suggesting that there is ample water in the desert or food for the beggards in Bombay. I am saying that even in the presence of genuine scarcity of external resources, the desire and capacity for self-sufficiency are innate and enough to meet the challenges we face. It is precisely when we turn our attentions to these inner resources – in fact, only when we do that – that we can begin to see more clearly the sufficiency in us and available to us, and we can begin to generate effective, sustainable responses to whatever limitations of resources confront us. When we let go of the chase for more, and consciously examine and experience the resources we already have, we discover our resources are deeper than we knew or imagined. In the nourishment of our attention, our assets expand and grow.

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Scarcity: The Great Lie

Written by Jennifer on 7th August 2009

This is an excerpt from the book, The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist. More about her, the book and her work can be found at www.soulofmoney.org.

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is, “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of. We don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough rest. We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profits. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course we don’t have enough money – ever. We’re not thin enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough – ever. . .

This mantra of not enough carries the day and becomes a kind of default setting for our thinking about everything, from the cash in our pocket to the people we love or the value of our own lives. What begins as a simple expression of the hurried life, or even the challenged life, grows into the great justification for an unfulfilled life. It becomes the reason we can’t have what we want or be who we want to be. It becomes the reason we can’t accomplish the goals we set for ourselves, the reason our dreams can’t come true, or the reason other people disappoint us, the reason we compromise our integrity, give up on ourselves or write off others. . .

It is not even that we necessarily experience a lack of something, but that scarcity as a chronic sense of inadequacy about life becomes the very place from which we think and act and live in the world. It shapes our deepest sense of ourselves, and becomes the lens through which we experience life. Through that lens our expectations, our behavior, and their consequences become a self-fulfilling prophesy of inadequacy, lack, and dissatisfaction.

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To Be Pleasant and Memorable

Written by Jennifer on 4th August 2009

Who doesn’t love a good email forward?!?!?

Okay, I don’t either. I’ve discovered, however, that they have this interesting disarming quality to them, especially when they are packaged with cute photos of animals or children.

See, you're hooked now, right?

It’s like talking to a dear friend who believes passionately about something and during the discourse, you feel your head nodding yes and your eyebrows raised in agreement. It’s not until you walk away that you realize that no, you don’t actually think waterboarding is ethically sound.

I received a forward today that compared the experience of life to that of a train journey. We get on board when we are born; we disembark when we die. The other passengers are our friends, etc.

As any recipient of such dispatches knows, the meaning is inevitably made clear enough that your 3 year old nephew would understand – no critical thinking required. This is handy. After all, I’m certainly not going to spend time on the deconstruction of a feel-good Power Point presentation that I feel compelled to read because I like sender.

Back to life = train ride. I’m moving quickly through the slide, gently rolling my eyes at the positive use of the word “baggage.” And then comes the message:

“Above all, we should all strive to make the ride as pleasant and memorable as we can.”

I feel my eyebrows raise a bit, my head lean to the left and a slight nod start at the top of my spine. This is nice, I think. Pleasant and memorable. I like pleasant – it’s comforting, reassuring, unobtrusive. And who doesn’t want to remember positive events? Or be remembered? Maybe I should think more about being pleasant and memorable.

And then my brows furrow. Pleasant and memorable? Pleasant is as vanilla as vanilla gets and memorable seems like a partial waste, considering you know, death.

What about bold? Powerful? Creative? Helpful? Connected? Authentic?

But what I really want is to hear from you. Play a little Mad Libs, fill in the blanks and share below:

Above all, we should all strive to make the ride as _____________ and ______________ as we can.

Tags: authenticity, purpose
Posted in authenticity, inspiration | 3 Comments »