September 2000

 

Skip This Article If You Never Worry
Cynthia Crawford, crawfordc@missouri.edu

As I’m writing this article, there are beautiful little hummingbirds feeding just outside my patio door. They are energetic, perky little birds and it is a pleasure to provide abundant food for them. Unfortunately, the hummingbirds will spend the majority of their lives chasing one another away from my feeder. They don’t seem to understand that I’m willing to put out all the liquid nutrition that they can possibly consume. There is plenty of liquid nutrition to go around and I’ll watch the feeder closely and fill it before it is empty, without fail.

The hummingbirds are an example of the "scarcity mentality." Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster: 1989, p. 219) says, "Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the scarcity mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else."

How do you spot people that are spending their lives "chasing away everyone else from the feeder?" They’ll have problems sharing recognition and credit, power and profit with others. They will be so busy keeping score they won’t have much time to be genuinely happy for the successes of others – even family members, close friends and co-workers. If someone gets more, its as though something is taken from the person with a scarcity mentality. "They’re always comparing, always competing," says Covey.

What a difference it would make for the little hummingbirds if they could adopt an abundance mentality instead. The abundance mentality springs in humans from a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is looking at the world and our relationships with others and deciding that there’s plenty out there for everybody. There’s enough prestige, recognition, profits, and decision making to go around. It recognizes unlimited possibilities. If I have been able to positively influence you in any way, then your success is my success. There is plenty of work and there is plenty of success to go around. The abundance mentality helps us realize that in giving to others no way diminishes us. It increases the opportunity for all of us.

Suze Orman does a nice job of relating the abundance mentality to financial management in her books The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom (Crown Publishers: 1997) and The Courage to be Rich (Crown Publishers: 1999).

I invited you to skip this article if you aren’t a worrier, yet I knew nearly 100% of readers would feel an urgency to read the article rather than skip it. Worry is a form of the scarcity mentality that shows up in our time management. It is an attempt to pre-live the future today. It is impossible to successfully live tomorrow today. Worrying is deciding in advance there will be scarcity.

The abundance mentality challenges us to set goals to live for today; to live in the present.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery…today is a gift that’s why we call it the present.

"Tomorrow is not promised,
Nor is today
So I choose to
celebrate every day I’m alive
by being fully present in it.

Living in the moment
means letting go of the past
and not waiting for the future.

It means living your life consciously,
aware that each moment you breathe is a gift."

                                        Oprah Winfrey

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