The Myth of Scarcity — The Myths Series

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The Myth of Scarcity–when people claim something is missing in their lives, they usually mean that no one told them they’d have to work and sacrifice for it.

Of Wayne’s many books, the one clos­est to today’s top­ic is: This End­less Moment

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Scarcity? Why, a little self-responsibility goes a long way.

Most times when we go back to Ontario, we hope for a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing. We’re glad to see our niece and her broth­er (oth­er­wise known as our nephew) and their respec­tive families.

You know, they’ve turned out OK!

One thing stands out: back when they were kids and young teens, they set mon­ey aside for the things they want­ed. Then… wait for it… they bought the things they want­ed with mon­ey they earned; they have always tak­en care of them­selves. Still do.

Quite unusual; most kids / teens I know assume that mom and dad are actually ATMs.

Said teens sit on their butts and expect their par­ents to give them what­ev­er they want. They learned this behav­iour as kids–they were giv­en what­ev­er they want­ed. Why? Parental guilt, most­ly, plus some weird idea that this some­how helps the kid.

Besides, standing up to the endless requests that come with childhood is “hard” (sob, sniffle.)

This starts when the is kid scream­ing in the can­dy line–and the par­ent buys the can­dy to get the kid to shut up. The par­en­t’s choice to end­less­ly buy a momen­t’s silence con­tributes to pro­duc­ing a per­son who thinks they’ll get what they want by sim­ply want­i­ng it. 

And if sim­ply want­i­ng it isn’t enough, then they’ll whine. And if whin­ing isn’t enough, they’ll pitch a fit, and wail that “It isn’t fair!” that they can’t have what they want.

If that does­n’t work, they’ll try to grab what they want from another. 

And if that does­n’t work, they’ll turn into Trump, get re-elect­ed Pres­i­dent, and make the meet­ing of their wants pub­lic policy.

Such peo­ple think that not hav­ing things they did­n’t earn demon­strates some­thing exter­nal: a short­age, an unfair­ness, an unequal dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth–a scarci­ty. Of whatever.

Here’s a hint — there is no scarcity of things–there is a scarcity of choice, self-responsibility and motivation.

Most cou­ples that seek rela­tion­ship coun­selling declare that there is a scarci­ty of inti­ma­cy in their rela­tion­ship. (Of course, they don’t use those words–it’s what they mean, though.) They then, loud­ly and at great length, describe what their part­ner has to do in order for there to be more intimacy. 

Each feels that the oth­er per­son should change. They also want their part­ner to stop insist­ing that they change–because–hey! it’s entire­ly the oth­er per­son­’s fault!

“If you loved me you’d change. You’d stop doing all the things I don’t like, and you’d stop criticizing me and accept me as I am.”

And then the oth­er per­son says some ver­sion of the same thing. 

Nev­er mind that this approach has nev­er worked for them–not once. Nev­er mind that what they are ask­ing for is a rela­tion­ship that does­n’t cost them any­thing. No, they declare, indig­nant­ly, they are being deprived of their just due because of the self­ish­ness of their partner.

The belief being “pitched” is this:

“By virtue of my enti­tle­ment, because I’m so spe­cial, I deserve spe­cial treat­ment. I deserve to be well-thought of, I deserve to have all my needs met.”

When they put it that way, it’s no dif­fer­ent from a kid pitch­ing a fit in a can­dy line. 

On the oth­er hand, I know that, as an adult, if I want the can­dy, I can have it any time I want. All I have to do is earn the mon­ey to pay for it. 

Now, how does this apply to personal entitlement?

Enti­tle­ment: Just because I say so, I should get what I want. I will come up with “rea­sons.” I’ll say, 

• “I’m the bread-win­ner, so what I say goes.” or, 
• “I’m sen­si­tive, you can’t treat me that way,” or 
• “Every so often I real­ly turn ugly, and you’ll just have to put up with it.”

Such behav­iour para­dox­i­cal­ly always gets the enti­tled per­son what they deserve (bro­ken rela­tion­ships.) It just nev­er gets them what they want.

The way out, and of course there is one, is the willingness to pay for abundance.

I will get out of my rela­tion­ships exact­ly what I put in. Actu­al­ly, I’ll get more than I put in–but I have to be open, acces­si­ble, curious–as opposed to expect­ing the oth­er per­son to “behave.”

• If I choose only to hang around and be in rela­tion­ship with peo­ple who act the same way, I will be met with open­ness, acces­si­bil­i­ty and curiosity. 
• If I want a career that I love, I have to pay what­ev­er is due to have that career. I have to edu­cate myself, and like­ly I’ll have to “work my way up.” 

And then there’s Magical Thinking

When peo­ple talk about scarci­ty (be it of inti­ma­cy, mon­ey, jobs, sex — what­ev­er) what they usu­al­ly mean is that what they want (as if what we want should mat­ter) did­n’t drop into their laps. Mag­i­cal think­ing requires that life is easy and things “just hap­pen.” Too bad about real­i­ty intruding.

I remem­ber once work­ing with a woman who want­ed to be an artist. She got her hus­band to build her a 1200-foot studio. 

She nev­er com­plet­ed any projects, because she was afraid pub­lish­ers would­n’t like her work. (She was illus­trat­ing the chil­dren’s’ books she’d writ­ten.) She could­n’t under­stand why no one would just give her mon­ey, sight unseen, for her uncom­plet­ed work. (Enti­tle­ment # 1) 

Then, she fell in lust with the car­pen­ter who built the addi­tion. This is when she came to see me. She was enti­tled, (enti­tle­ment # 2) she told me, to a deep and mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship with the car­pen­ter (who was also mar­ried) and was enti­tled (# 3) to have the per­mis­sion and bless­ing of her hus­band, the car­pen­ter’s wife (# 4) and all their kids (# 5), while at the same time stay­ing with her hus­band (# 6) and hav­ing him pay all the bills! (# 7) 

Because, you know, she want­ed (# 8) this rela­tion­ship, and it was good for her (# 9), and peo­ple should under­stand (# 10). 

I said that she could ask for all of this, but she need­ed to be ready for her hus­band to scream “NO!” as the door hit her on the back­side (Real­i­ty 101). 

She patient­ly explained to me that this would not hap­pen, because God want­ed her to have this rela­tion­ship (enti­tle­ment from God) — and who was I to try to trump God? 

What she want­ed from me (enti­tle­ment of the “self-declared “wise”) — what she want­ed was for me to do and say what she want­ed me to do and say. “I need help and don’t know what to do. My life is a mess. Here is what you should say to help me.”) 

I was to help her get her affir­ma­tion just right, so that she’d get what she want­ed. She claimed, loud and clear, that she did­n’t have a rela­tion­ship problem–she had a faulty affir­ma­tion. (I’d nev­er heard a brain called an affir­ma­tion before, but I digress.) 

I fired her. From what I heard through the gos­sip mill, both mar­riages dis­in­te­grat­ed, the lust­ing cou­ple aren’t speak­ing and the stu­dio is emp­ty. But boy, she was enti­tled to every­thing — every­thing she got.

You can’t have some­thing just because you want it. No, life costs. Rela­tion­ships cost. They need a full-bod­ied com­mit­ment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The price is com­mit­ment. It’s not lying to your­self, manip­u­lat­ing peo­ple, run­ning around half cocked. Abun­dance is there, not for the tak­ing, but for the earning.

We can have any­thing we are will­ing to pay for, in time, tal­ent, effort and money.

What there isn’t is a free ride.

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