Darwin may have been right. It could be that within a species in a particular environment, survival, procreation, evolution, or death is determined by competition for limited resources. It could be that the concept of scarcity installed in natural selection is the driving force behind our existence.

Or.

It could be evolution depends on the opposite.

It could be, as Einstein wrote in 1950, “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us, “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest…a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creates and the whole of nature in it’s beauty.”

It could be, our task is to survive not by protecting what is individual and separate, but instead, to free ourselves from self imposed scarcity.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the difference between scarcity and abundance. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the difference between people who live from a scarcity perspective and those who live from abundance. Truth is, I have lived from both perspectives and abundance is just more pleasant.

Ten minutes before the start of the gold medal game of the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, I was well into goalie zone when I got a tap on the shoulder. I was startled.  Disrupting a goalie’s pre-gram routine is sort of akin to talking to a pitcher during a no-hitter. I looked up. It was my goalie partner, Sara D. She was holding a small guardian angel pin. Sara and I had a rare relationship, we were truly great friends, as well as goalie partners. I say rare because goalie partners can be extremely competitive. Only one goalie gets to play, and therefore, every game can feel like a referendum on who is better. Amongst high-level athletes, that competition often triggers a very primal survival-o
f-the-fittest energy. I participated in many tainted goalie partnerships, the kind where one goalie wants the other to play terrible, so they will get the start; the kind were one goalie wants the other to fail so that they can succeed. I never felt that with Sara. We both wanted to play, yes. But we both made each other better. I celebrated her amazing saves and she celebrated mine. Instead of wanting the other to fail, it was almost as if we kept upping each other’s game, learning and growing and pushing and supporting each other. It was rare.

 “My parents gave it to me for good luck,” Sara said.  “I’ve worn it throughout the season, I want you to wear it now….if you want to?”I was floored. “Yes, thank you.” I stuttered. Then I stood as Sara lifted
my jersey and pinned the small angel to my equipment on the back of my shoulder. I knew Sara would rather have been playing, but her gesture defined grace. And in that moment, she taught me true abundance. We won that game, with Sara’s angel on my back. One of my favorite pictures from the ’98 Olympics is Sara and I sharing equally in the raw joy of the moment.

There have been other moments since then. Infinite small and some very big moments. Like when my friend offered to be a gestational surrogate for us. To be offered the gift of life, the gift of a family…well… it’s the actual manifestation of the cliché, life never looks the same again. It just doesn’t. And though we tried, it didn’t work. And then a stranger, a complete stranger, offered to be our surrogate. Offered life. And I could never again be an island.

Leann. Twenty-eight at the time, three kids of her own, and two jobs. She never complained through months of intramuscular shots and morning sickness and extreme fatigue of carrying twins. She never complained when her belly got rather large. I never felt resentment when she dislocated her daughter’s wrist because she couldn’t bend down to pick her up over her growing belly. For ten months, she (and her family) chose everyday to tap into the beauty instead of the fear, the gift instead of the risk and inconvenience of growing and carrying twins, the connection instead of the disconnection. I asked her once what was most surprising about the surrogacy process. Her response: “I’m surprised by how invested I am that everything turn out for you guys. I just want everything to go well, you’ve been through so much.”  We will forever be grateful.  And to this day, she carries our thanks and gratitude with so much grace, you’d think we had done her a favor. Other people, other options for surrogacy lived in sarcity that sounded like, What if there’s something wrong with the baby? Whose fault would that be? What if the baby loves the surrogate, won’t you be jealous? What if something goes wrong? The contrast was startling. The more people who love my kids the better. Leann, her husband, and her three daughters grew Kalvin and Grace in an environment of love and grace and plenty.And they gave us Kalvin and Grace.

Those are big moments. But the difference in worldviews is everywhere, all the time.  Scarcity.  The truth is, I have never really been without. I have never been without food for days or water or shelter or a viable future.  I have never been without a way to take care of my kids, my family, the people I love.  I am all too aware that isn’t true of everyone.

But I have been lonely, and when I was, every other person on the planet seemed to be having a good time, alive with vibrant connection. When I’ve been sick or injured, I notice every person running.  When I’ve been hungry, everything revolved around food.  And I realize that scarcity creates a cognitive tunnel that limits what a person can see and too often leads to fixation and rumination on trivialities. That’s scarcity in the real world. I know it exists. I know it’s real. But it relates to a different kind of scarcity, one I know I am lucky to contemplate in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

And that is the soul sickness of scarcity?  What about the constriction of the mind that eventually defines a person’s character? What about the sickness that has a person assuming the worst about others rather than the best? That has a person feeling excessively competitive about nothing of substance to feed their need to feel superior? What about those people who live in ridiculous prisons of ideas and opinions?  I know when I’m in their presence. I feel tight and constricted and searching for the nearest exist. I know when I feel it, but have always struggled to find words to describe the why. I think at root level it’s the difference between givers and takers, between selfishness of spirit, and generosity of spirit, between independence and interdependence, between a tidy life full of neatly categorized rules, judgments and conclusions and one full of mystery and adventure.

I don’t love scarcity minded people, SMPs.  I just don’t.  I don’t care for people who cling desperately to what is theirs, are overly self-protective, or coy.  I don’t migrate toward people who are so certain other people will take from them, they never truly trust.  I don’t gravitate toward people who are stingy or cheap or rigid in their opinions. I’m uncomfortable around people who need everyone one and everything to have a place in the world, buttoned up, nice and neat. I don’t like people who create conflict to feed their identity as someone who has conviction. I make funny faces around people who lack the ability to acknowledge that their opinions are simply the product of their thought-generating machine. Change the input, change the output.  That’s how the mind works.  Nope, my strength and identity are my opinions, they will say. But despite their convictions, they emanate a fundamental desperation that is frightening and sad.

The opposite are those people who seem to understand at root level that all the good stuff — love, joy, generosity, connection, faith, friendship, wonder, awe, growth — cannot be hoarded and collected and protected and saved. Those things grow only when shared. Abundant minded people live in the belief there is enough, of whatever, to go around. They are generous and optimistic and see possibility instead of conflict.  Dan is the epitome of an abundant mind-set. He is gracious in social situations, generous with finances, optimistic to a fault. And he was a Wall Street analyst, in case you are wondering. Abundance is a non-denominational kind of outlook (kidding baby!). But what Dan emanates most is confidence that the world is a good place. Just as SMPs emanate desperation and constriction, the Dan’s of the world emanate confidence and expansion that is intoxicating to be around.

Now everything lately seems to come back to Kalvin and Grace. Perhaps everything I write is eventually for you two. So be it. Here goes.

My beautiful little beings,

I hope I can help you both to live from a core belief in abundance, not scarcity. Yes, it makes life easier. Yes, it makes you nicer to be around. But here is the real reason I want that for you: abundance is a natural access point to the flow of the universe, the flow of shakti where there exists more of anything we could possibly need in a lifetime.

Little ones, I also hope you steer clear of those rooted in scarcity because the disease of the SMPs is incredibly contagious. Steer clear of the people who tend to be overly judgmental and unaware of their judgment, rigid in their opinions, greedy, or stingy with their finances, beliefs, and compromises. Your body will tell you, listen to it. Steer clear of people who make your chest tighten, who make you feel greedy or infected by limitation or fear. I know for me, it manifests as a need a need to establish and hold boundaries that didn’t exist before, an urge to hold back, protect, an urge to constrict. Those are my queues to get, skidaddle, leave, run fast and far. Or, less dramatic, just walk away and open your heart and trust you will always land on your feet, you will always find a way, there is always enough. Because here’s the thing, the walls SMPs create to keep what’s theirs theirs, the ones they build with bricks of greed, mine, me, fear, negativity, rigidity, the walls they build to protect themselves from the big bad world, what they’ve really built is a self-imposed prison that cuts themselves off a vital life source, the only one that exists, the universe, of which they are a part. That is so sad.

Sara D, Leann, Einstein, Daddy, I think they have it right. We are all on the same team. At least for the stuff that matters.