Attacking scarcity: 29 gifts in 29 days

There's a beauty in American independence. There's an idea here, related to capitalism, of every man for himself. It's the striking autonomy that made us explore the wild frontier or voyage to the moon.

But it has it's limits. Because we're so on-our-own, we're paranoid about someone taking what we have away.

My mom finds this in her not-so-tolerant lady friends. I find it here on the internet quite a lot. "Someone is spending MY tax dollars on such and such/ruining my neighborhood/bothering me..." We don't want anyone to take what we see as rightfully ours, and we're worried that there isn't enough to go around. We don't want to get stuck without a chair in the musical chairs game of life.

Scarcity. There's never enough. How do we change that mindset?

My mom said we can't change other people's minds. We can only live our own lives. She's pretty wise, that mother of mine.

So instead of complaining about other people, I'm going to try to get rid of my own idea of scarcity. I'm going to try an experiment started by blogger Cami Walker, who just came out with a book called "29 Gifts: how a month of giving could change your life."

Walker was suffering from multiple sclerosis when she got the idea to start giving things away, one thing every day for 29 days. She got the idea from an African spiritual teacher who had this to say about scarcity:

 Many of us have little concept of scarcity as known in many African countries. However even when we have so much we can still live in the scarcity of not having enough or being enough. This message is received in the Western world on a daily basis. Giving of any kind... taking an action... begins the process of change, and moves us to remember that we are part of a much greater universe.

Maybe the concept is a little peace/love/dove for you. Think of it this way: I don't like this idea of scarcity, and instead of complaining about it in other people, I'm going to attack it in myself and see what happens.

After all, Americans pull themselves up by their bootstraps. So if this is what I want to accomplish, I better start with me.

I'll post little updates from time to time, just to let you know how it's going. You can find out more, or sign up for the 29 day challenge yourself. Let me know if you do, and we can swap stories.