I want to believe in abundance. In my heart, I know that this is a better way to live, that it allows me to feel gratitude and to practice generosity and that it frees me from the old trap of “not enoughness”. For a few years now I have been practicing gratitude and living with a belief in abundance. Much of the time this has had to be a conscious and intentional decision, not a natural habit.
My skeptical mind questions whether there is an intellectual or reality basis for a belief in abundance. Is the universe really abundant or is it fundamentally a place of scarcity? Mostly I have tried to avoid my skepticism by accepting that both abundance and scarcity are really just narratives made up in an attempt to make sense of the world. As such, neither is inherently more true; so it really is a question of which story works the best for me. But, a nagging voice continues to question whether there is evidence to support the story of abundance or is it just wishful thinking?
When I read Roberto Venzola’s blog on Ten Hypothesis About Abundance and the Commons I became excited. Here at last was a well thought out intellectual basis for abundance. Information, by its nature, is abundant and wants to be free. Information is inherently reproductive. And there is abundant evidence of this in the evolution internet and the proliferation of information it has spawned. Yet, at the same time, there is a scarcity of fossil fuel and of clean water (at least with current technologies) and of arable farmland and of precious minerals. So, there are two very different phenomena – an abundance in the realm of information and ideas and a scarcity (or potential scarcity) in the realm of material things.
The material and the non-material realms have very different properties! What an obvious, yet profound, realization. If I believe in the old paradigm that the universe is fundamentally material then scarcity is a natural and logical premise. However, if the universe is fundamentally non-material, energetic, informational, spiritual, then abundance makes total sense. The physical world is only a manifestation of the abundance of the non-material world.
Suddenly I realize that my choice is not whether to believe in abundance or scarcity but, rather, whether I believe in a material or a non-material reality. For most of my life, I have intuitively rejected the values and lifestyle of materialism. Now I am beginning to realize that this rejection of materialism is a radical act with potentially life-changing and game-changing ramifications. It is not just some new-age, fuzzy-headed idea. It is consistent with contemporary physics which recognizes the non-material basis of the universe. The more scientists reduce things to their essence, the less they behave like matter and the more they look like energy or information.
So, what becomes possible if I truly believe in abundance? How much more generous and grateful could I become? What place is there for fear in a world of abundance? What if I truly accept that money is not physical currency but is actually information and a trust relationship – something very intangible and non-material? What if I develop the ability to see beneath every “real world” problem of scarcity and competition to the energetic or spiritual potential for abundant collaboration and creativity? How easy might it be to live in generosity and gratitude? This is the realm where I want to live and I want to develop the practices that allow me to do so.
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