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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It’s not worth stand­ing in line for…

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 know 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, try to 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 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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Series Nav­i­ga­tion

« The Myth of Easy — The Myths SeriesThe Myth of Lim­i­ta­tions — The Myths Series »