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CHAPTER 1
SCARCITY: LOOKING INSIDE OUR CULTURE OF “NEVER ENOUGH”
YOU can’t swing a cat without hitting a narcissist.”
It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to teachers, parents, CEOs, or my neighbors, the response is the same: These egomaniacs need to know that they’re not special, they’re not that great, they’re not entitled to jack, and they need to get over themselves. No one cares.
LOOKING AT NARCISSISM THROUGH THE LENS OF VULNERABILITY
Diagnosing and labeling people whose struggles are more environmental or learned than genetic or organic is often far more detrimental to healing and change than it is helpful.
when I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary.
I am only as good as the number of “likes” I get on Facebook or Instagram. Because we are all vulnerable to the messaging that drives these behaviors.
I know how seductive it is to use the celebrity culture yardstick to measure the smallness of our lives.
SCARCITY: THE NEVER-ENOUGH PROBLEM
Lynne Twist, In The Soul of Money, refers to scarcity as “the great lie.” She writes: For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.”
Scarcity is the “never enough” problem.
Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare ourselves and our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed: “Remember when…? Those were the days…”
THE SOURCE OF SCARCITY
Worrying about scarcity is our culture’s version of post-traumatic stress.
I found the same dynamics playing out in family culture, work culture, school culture,
and community culture. And they all share the same formula of shame, comparison, and disengagement.
- Shame: Is fear of ridicule and belittling used to manage people and/or to keep people in line? Is self-worth tied to achievement, productivity, or compliance?
- Comparison: Healthy competition can be beneficial, but is there constant overt or covert comparing and ranking?
- Disengagement: Are people afraid to take risks or try new things? Is it easier to stay quiet than to share stories, experiences, and ideas?
The counterapproach to living in scarcity is not about abundance. In fact, I think abundance and scarcity are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of “never enough” isn’t abundance or “more than you could ever imagine.”
The opposite of scarcity is enough, or what I call Wholeheartedness.
The greatest casualties of a scarcity culture are our willingness to own our vulnerabilities and our ability
to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.
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