Sufficiency
Sufficiency: The Surprising Truth
When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands.
They lived (and still do) in the experience and expression of enough, or what I call sufficiency. Instead of seeking more, they treasure and steward thoughtfully what is already there.
Achuar, wealth means being present to the fullness and richness of the moment and sharing that with one another.
We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.
Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances. In our relationship with money, it is using money in a way that expresses our integrity; using it in a way that expressesvalue rather than determines value. Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resources. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough.
The greatest teacher of sufficiency is nature and the natural laws of the earth—laws that have no amendments, laws that are not argued on the Senate floor. These are the laws we live by whether we acknowledge them or not.
The great environmentalist Dana Meadows said that one of the most fundamental laws of the earth is the law of enough. Nature, she once wrote, says we have “just so much and no more. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops. The planet does not get bigger, it gets better. Its creatures learn, mature, diversify, evolve, create amazing beauty and novelty and complexity, but live within absolute limits.”
Sufficiency as a way of being offers us enormous personal freedom and possibility. Rather than scarcity’s myths that tell us that the only way to perceive the world is there’s not enough, more is better, and that’s just the way it is, the truth of sufficiency asserts that there is enough for everyone. Knowing that there is enough inspires sharing, collaboration, and contribution.
we will look at money in a new way, look at money as a flow, like water, rather than a static amount of something we have to accumulate.
SUFFICIENCY: THE THREE TRUTHS
“Girl,” she said, “my name is Gertrude and I like what you’ve said and I like you,” she said. “Now, I ain’t got no checkbook and I ain’t got no credit cards. To me, money is a lot like water. For some folks it rushes through their life like a raging river. Money comes through my life like a little trickle. But I want to pass it on in a way that does the most good for the most folks. I see that as my right and as my responsibility. It’s also my joy. I have fifty dollars in my purse that I earned from doing a white woman’s wash and I want to give it to you.”
The money I received from Gertrude carried the energy of her commitment to make a difference—the stamp of her soul—and as I accepted the money, I felt inspired by her and renewed by her expression of integrity and purpose. I felt my organization’s principles and programs affirmed, not only by her fifty dollars, but also by her contribution of spirit. Gertrude’s money had come from the soul and not from a bank account intended to ease guilt or buy admiration. She set that standard for everyone in the room that night, and I felt the money they gave was “blessed money.” The precise amount of the money and how much it would buy was secondary to the power of the money as it moved with purpose, intention, and soulful energy in the act of contribution. Gertrude taught me that the power of money is really derived from the intention we give it and the integrity with which we direct it into the world. Gertrude’s gift was great, and her clarity helped me regain my own.
SCARCITY VS. SUFFICIENCY: HOW DO WE FEEL THE FLOW?
Gertrude taught me that money is like water. Money flows through all our lives, sometimes like a rushing river, and sometimes like a trickle. When it is flowing, it can purify, cleanse, create growth, and nourish. But when it is blocked or held too long, it can grow stagnant and toxic to those withholding or hoarding it.
Like water, money is a carrier. It can carry blessed energy, possibility, and intention, or it can carry control, domination, and guilt. It can be a current or currency of love—a conduit for commitment—or a carrier of hurt or harm. We can be flooded with money and drown in its excess, and when we dam it up unnecessarily, we keep it out of circulation to the detriment of others.
In this condition of scarcity, money shows up not as a flow, but as an amount, something to collect and hold on to, to stockpile. We measure our self-worth by our net worth, and only and always more is better. Any drop on the balance sheet is experienced as a loss that diminishes us.
Grounded in sufficiency, money’s movement in and out of our life feels natural. We can see that flow as healthy and true, and allow that movement instead of being anxious about it or hoarding. In sufficiency we recognize and celebrate money’s power for good—our power to do good with it—and we can experience fulfillment in directing the flow toward our highest ideals and commitments. When we perceive the world as one in which there is enough and we are enough to make the world work for everyone everywhere, with no one left out, our money carries that energy and generates relationships and partnerships in which everyone feels able and valued, regardless of their economic circumstances.
ALLOCATION VS. ACCUMULATION
True wealth, or well-being, can’t be found in a static balance sheet, no matter how large the accumulation of financial assets. Wealth shows up in the action of sharing and giving, allocating and distributing, nourishing and watering the projects, people, and purpose that we believe in and care about, with the resources that flow to us and through us. Accumulation in moderation—saving money—is part of a responsible approach to personal finances. But when “holdings” hold us back from using money in meaningful, life-affirming ways, then money becomes an end in itself and an obstacle to well-being.
Just as blood in the body must flow to all parts of the body for health to be maintained, money is useful when it is moving and flowing, contributed and shared, directed and invested in that which is life affirming. When blood slows down and begins to stop or clot, the body becomes sick. When water slows down and becomes stagnant, it becomes toxic. Accumulating and holding large quantities of money can have the same toxic effect on our life.
When we see money as something that flows through our lives and through the world, we realize that it doesn’t really belong to anyone; or we could say it belongs to everyone and the opportunity we have is to allow this resource, just like water, to move through the world in a way that nurtures the most people, and the highest purpose.
KNOW THE FLOW: TRUTH TELLING ABOUT WHERE THE MONEY GOES
Do you know the flow of money in your life? Are you mindful of how it comes to you? Are you consciously allocating where you want your money to go? When you can see the way money flows through your life, it gives you power to see where you are in your relationship with it and where you want to go with it.
The way money flows to you and through you to other purposes isn’t unrelated to your life. Does your money come to you through work, relationships, or perhaps existing wealth that carries the energy of nourishing, generative commitments and values? Or does it come to you through work or relationships that deplete or exploit you, other people, or the environment? An unhealthy relationship with the way you acquire money is something that can suppress your life. The way we earn it and the way we spend it have an effect. It matters. It does make a difference. To bring that consciousness into your relationship with money, to true the course of that flow, is a courageous, empowering, and important practice.
Knowing the flow is an examination without blame. We can witness how money comes to us, how we spend it, save it, invest it, give it to others, and in this personal financial fact-finding mission begin to see the flow as a representation of our values. Sometimes what you discover is a fit with who you think you are, and other times it’s just not. When it’s not, then there is an opportunity to reexamine the flow and how you actively manage and direct it. Without a judgment of good or bad, when you know the flow, it gives you the necessary self-knowledge to make conscious choices that align your spending with your vision of yourself and your highest commitments.
We have much more power than perhaps we realize to direct our financial resources in ways that support, empower, and express what we believe in. It takes courage to direct the flow, but with each choice, we invest in the world as we envision it. We can consciously choose, for instance, whether to spend our money on products or entertainment that are violent and destructive to the psyche of our children, or invest in activities that enrich their experience of life and deepen their appreciation of it. We can choose whether to buy into the imagery of success or style, or to invest our money in ways that nourish the inner life. We can use this grand resource of money to affirm those companies whose products and people support the well-being of our children and our communities, or we can get caught up in spending to get more simply because we can, and find ourselves accumulating things that eventually only burden us with excess, clutter our homes, and end up in a landfill.
(Here I am, a social activist, someone working to stop child labor in developing countries and clean up the environment, yet completely blind to the fact that I was ready to buy anything and everything for my adorable granddaughter, with no consciousness about where it came from, who made it, how it was made, and any consequences that came from that.)
In philanthropic interactions, we can return to the soul of money: money as a carrier of our intentions, money as energy, and money as a currency for love, commitment, and service; money as an opportunity to nourish those things we care most about.
