Abundance vs. Scarcity

This is the subject that I thought about as a blog post the other night. And then I remembered it. And guess what I did! I wrote it down!

Just for a second, answer the following questions for yourself. Is there a lot, just enough, or not enough to go around? A lot of anything you can think of, just enough of anything you can think of and not enough of anything you can think of. What do you think? What do you feel? Take a few minutes to formulate your thoughts and beliefs.

I fundamentally believe that the Universe is abundant. There is lots of everything. Easily enough. Yes, everything. Does that mean that it is currently in my hands? Sort of. (A blog post for another day) It does mean that there is lots of everything. And I don't need to stress over there not being enough. Sure, there are times when it looks and feels like there isn't enough. People (and I am a people, most of the time) worry that there isn't enough. Of whatever you want there not to be enough of. It just seems that there really is. Perhaps not in your particular corner of the Universe at that particular time of your existence, there just doesn't seem to be enough, but really, there is...

Let's start on a macrocosmic level. How many stars are there? How much energy does the sun give off? What about quasars? Black Holes? Even if the Universe is finite, there is still an awful lot of it. I think the Universe is everything, so by definition it doesn't have an end or a beginning so is infinite, but that is a thought for a different time and place. So, I think we can agree that there is a lot of stuff in the Universe.

Let's look microcosmically. How many atoms are there? Or quarks? Or pieces of quarks? Let's just agree that there are lots of those as well.

Now that is just for starters. In those two areas, the universe is awfully abundant. Where this seems to break down is in the nitty gritty, daily life sort of thing. How much money is there on the Earth? Is there enough to go around? Food? Water? Air? Air Jordans? Let's start with the easiest one of these - Air Jordans. There are definitely a finite number of Air Jordans. Are there enough Air Jordans? For me, there certainly are, since I have no desire for any Air Jordans in my life. So from my perspective, there are abundant Air Jordans. Let's generalize a smidge - footwear - is there enough footwear on the planet? I would hazard a guess that, yes, there is enough footwear on the planet. Imelda Marcos might disagree, but yes, I think we could mostly agree that there is enough footwear for those who want footwear to have footwear. Air and Water, so far, there seem to be enough of those as well. I guess the big one in concrete terms is money. Is there enough money in the world? Yes, I hazard to say, even though money is a made up construct, unlike air and water and footwear, there is enough money in the world. According to the US Treasury in July of 2009, there was $8.3 trillion of US Currency floating around the world. That is to say $8,300,000,000,000. That is just US currency. If one does the math, that is approximately $27,666 per person (guestimating 300,000,000 men women and children in the US). Seems like a good number. I am not sure where I am going with this, other than to say there it seems like there is enough money in the world.

Just imagine a world not driven by the belief that there isn't enough. A world without greed. Without the need to be fearful that because there is only a limited amount of anything, if I don't get mine, I will perish. Because, after all, the most underlying root fear of just about everyone is the fear of death and the "struggle" for survival.

By the way, I published another writing blog post. Yippee!