Abundance as a burden

Inside the economical perspective of us humans the narrative of competition is the most prominent one. Most of the public life is ruled by the story of winners and losers. Winners, who were able to dominate in their field of profession. Losers, who were not able to take their share of the available materialistic resources.

What is lost in this process of competition is a honest reflection of ones own needs and desires. What do we need to lead a good life? Is it an abundance of material resources? And why does this idea is still so present as a leading promise of many states in this world?

Wealth is associated with a vastness of possibilities, a life without limits in every aspect of life. But what is it exactly, which is so attractive of this concept? Isn’t it much more the access to a variety of goods and services, that constitutes being wealthy?

If it is much more about the access to goods, then why don’t we try to regulate the access to these things in a different way?

This re-regulation would completely change the narrative which we tell ourselves about Possessions and Wealth. People would not work to gain material resources, but for the sake of the activity itself. This would result in a new focus on materialistic resources as something to be shared, not possessed and accumulated in an exclusive way.

The most important illusion of wealth is the correlation of accumulated wealth and happiness. Up to a certain point the happiness of a person increases, but beyond this point these two variables do not correlate anymore. Some wealthy people even demand higher taxes for the wealth they own, because they do not view their wealth as justified.

The desired state of being associated with wealth is about something else, something we tend to project onto the status of being wealthy: a materialistic safety and a felt security and an ability to enjoy life and its challenges without being afraid to starve of hunger after the next paycheck.

But this state of being, beyond the level of basic needs of course, is something we generate and sustain on our own. It is an inner faith in life. An inner calmness which translates into a feeling of security. This freedom of desires and cravings is something we can all cultivate and maintain in order to live in a state of abundance, rather than craving for an illusion of power over outer resources.