What Is Abundance?

Coaches like to talk about achieving "abundance" in one's life. When I hear the word "abundance", I usually think of the symbol of the cornucopia, spilling over with the good things of the harvest ... or of the ads for a certain chain of Italian restaurants for whom "abundance" seems to mean ridiculously large and unhealthy portions of fatty food. It makes one a little uncomfortable, since one person's abundance is often another's shortage, and wanting more than what one needs can be, we have always been told, evidence of pure and simple Envy and Greed. And we all know that Greed and Envy are listed among the Seven Deadly Sins.

But perhaps we're looking at abundance the wrong way. Try this on for size: Abundance means having enough of a resource that you don't fear running out of it, and can bless the lives of others by giving the surplus away. The opposite of abundance, scarcity, would then mean living in the fear that you will run out of something, and not having enough of the resource to give it away without increasing your fear. Abundance is a subjective experience of tranquillity or perhaps fullness, then, and fear of scarcity or emptiness is its opposite. Envy is the resentment of the abundance of others, and Greed the desire to accumulate resources above and beyond what is needed to live in a state of perceived abundance.

Fear, Envy, Greed ... all signs of an attachment to things. And yet, one of the antidotes is to give things away. You can't give away what you don't have so everyone needs a minimal level of abundance to remain detached from things: enough to survive plus extra to give away. And one can experience abundance in other areas of one's life besides possessions and money: time, for example; and love in relationships. I can't tell you what abundance might look like for you ... but I know I've lived on both sides of the divide, and if one can't pay one's bills and meet the family's basic needs, it's hard to remain detached from the need for the things in one's life. Same with time: if one spends all his/her time working, there's no time left over to give away to the people one loves.