Another view - Posted by ray@lcorn
Posted by ray@lcorn on September 24, 1999 at 24:07:46:
Brad,
First let me say that this is a great thread. But then I would have enjoyed those discussions back in the middle ages about how many angels (or woodchucks) can dance on the head of a pin! (Do woodchucks dance?)
Let me say at the outset that I have read many of your posts on this and other forums, and have the greatest respect for you as a person. Your thoughts and opinions are well-stated, and I find I share many values with you and all others that are committed to truth and fair dealing in all phases of life. Thank you for your contributions, and please don’t take any of my comments as anything but a discussion of ideas.
I find your perspective on abundance and scarcity interesting, but incomplete. As I related above, I have had the experience of extreme scarcity, as well as the blessings of abundance. I do believe that in both cases, my own thinking brought the respective conditions into my life. Given that we share this belief, it is then a short step to the realization that action (other than reflex), or inaction, can only follow a thought or thoughts. However, it seems to me that there could be a very easy case made that different individuals could take the same action as the result of several different, even opposing, thoughts.
In this example, you see the coin on the sidewalk (however that may come to pass, whether by encounter, searching or just dumb luck while trying to see where you’re stepping next… I don’t think it really matters) and have the thought that because you believe in holding a mindset of abundance, there is no reason for you to pick up the coin. You then conclude that someone who picks it up must automatically believe opposite of you, i.e. a mindset of scarcity. That’s a little too open and shut for my taste. In my experience there are really very few either/or situations in life. There is more often a third, fourth or fifteenth possibility to explain much of the happenings of our world, demonstrating that thoughts are indeed things, just not always the things we recognize.
I would submit that my mindset is as equally centered in abundance as yours, but manifests (demonstrates) in another way. While coming out of my own period of scarcity, I had to find something to center me beyond material things. Once finding that center, I then became aware of the many states of abundance present in my life, even though on a monetary basis I had nothing. I had some talent in writing and speaking, a loving family, and one or two people I could call a true friend. And that brought me to the concept of stewardship. Many thinkers much smarter than me have expounded eloquently on the concept of stewardship, the practice of caring for what has been given to us. And I found that the better care I took of the abundance already present in my life, the more abundance I received.
It reminded me of when I was a boy and I wanted a new bicycle. I had a purple ten-speed all picked out, and was hounding my dad to buy it for me, promising to take care of it, and promising pay him back from my paper route money. He listened to my story, and then asked to see my old bicycle. Now, I was a pretty rough kid on equipment. That bike looked like it had been through a war. The tires were slick, spokes bent and missing, the fenders bent(yes, it had fenders in those days!) and scratched. My dad said that if that was the way I took care of this bike, what was to make him think a new bike would be taken care of any better? What do you think I did? That’s right, I cleaned that bike up and straigtened the dings, and then tried again. I demonstrated that I could take care of what I had been given.
Now that is probably a sophomoric story to use as an analogy, but I look at loose change in just this way. If I take care of those gifts (talents, money, friends, etc.) that have been entrusted to me, then I am creating the conditions necessary to receive even greater gifts (abundance). By ignoring the money on the sidewalk, I am denying the good that it could accomplish if stewarded correctly, e.g. put in my change jar for future use.
Further, if I followed your model I would conclude that since you did ignore the money on the sidewalk, you do not demonstrate stewardship of the abundance put in your path, and therefore you will either remain at the level of abundance you are presently at, or regress, until you become aware that you blew the chance to increase your abundance in a way that you can’t see. Is that correct? I don’t know. But I have seen this principle work in my life, and have come to the belief through experience rather than theory.
So… now would you think about picking up that coin?
(*