Sufficiency Is Not Abundance - Lynne Twist
We can learn to invest the resources that flow through our lives in a new
future for all of us. We can direct those resources, whether they are like a
rushing torrent coming through our lives or a small trickle, to our highest
commitments and ideals. We can move our money, or the money we are entrusted
with, toward that which will serve us all from a sense of our own wholeness
rather than a desperate longing to be complete.
I call this living in the context of sufficiency. This is not the same as
abundance (abundance is more than we need—it is excess), and in the context in
which I’m speaking, abundance is merely the flip side of scarcity. You strive to
get more than you need because you believe or fear there is not enough.
Sufficiency is precise. It means that things are sufficient,
exactly enough. There is a principle of sufficiency, and it is as follows: When
you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, which is what
we’re all trying to get more of, it frees up immense energy to make a difference
with what you have.
When you make a difference with what you have, it expands. This context
opens the possibility of generating a new set of assumptions based in the
principle of sufficiency for the 21st century. If we are willing to begin to
commit to make a difference with what we have rather than putting all of our
energy into getting more, then…what we have will naturally and organically
expand.
This new set of assumptions or new context can create a whole new culture
around money and around life. It can teach us how to be known for what we
allocate rather than what we accumulate. It can teach us to be measured and
measure others by our inner riches rather than our accumulation of outer riches.
We can learn how to end charity as we know it and begin truly investing or being
vested in a new future that will serve us all.
Although we think there are people with money and people without it, the
real truth is, money is a part of everyone’s life from the poorest peasant to
the wealthiest industrialist, the way we direct the money that comes through our
lives defines us.
The American billionaire and the Guatemalan peasant farmer, the European
industrialist and the Ethiopian grassroots leader can stand together in co-equal
partnership and invest their time, energy and financial resources in a new
future for all of us, in a future that will serve us all.
About the Author: Lynne Twist, in The Soul of Money
