One of the best ways to foster sufficiency is by encouraging the full use of our talents and abilities.

Pursuing our talents and abilities at work or at play allows us to feel confident in our capabilities and in our usefulness, getting us closer to believing in our own worth or sufficiency. It also simultaneously makes us feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually satisfied, more respectful of the environment and ourselves but more innovative and productive. When we use our talents and abilities to their utmost, we feel happy and sufficient. Our self-expression feeds our souls like nothing else, making us feel like our cup is overflowing. And because of this we no longer need to consume or hoard as much. We feel we have more to give and are more able to receive.

This may sound too simplistic or too anthropocentric for those who see the solution to our self-destructive tendencies as regulatory (e.g. limiting human activity through laws and policies) or monetary (taxes and penalties). These may be part of the solution but I would argue that man and his attitude (his insufficiency perspective) is the problem. We feel fear, we feel a huge spiritual void and so we consume and hoard to resolve this. And when this doesn’t work, we consume and hoard some more. The solution to greed and over-consumption and the havoc it wreaks on the environment and society is not necessarily more regulation and taxes but a methodology for changing people’s attitudes or perspectives to see themselves as sufficient. And one of the best ways of changing that attitude is by helping people to fully use their talents and abilities.

Sufficiency and abundance are often mentioned together and used interchangably. However, these concepts are actually distinct and achieved in different ways.

Sufficiency is a state of being or awareness, relating to the perception of the self. It might be likened to a sense of completeness or wholeness.

Abundance, on the other hand, is a state of mind relating to the perception of universal forces. When universal forces are perceived to be plentiful and moving towards you, they are deemed to be abundant. When they are perceived to be lacking or moving away from you, they are deemed to be scarce.

Abundance tends to be a condition of one’s sense of sufficiency. If I feel sufficient, I tend to see the world as abundant and therefore attact abundance. If I feel insufficient, I tend to see the world as lacking and therefore push abundance away.

As an analogy, you might liken the sufficiency and abundance relationship to that of a magnet and magnetism. The magnet itself is the sense of sufficiency. The magnetism or pull of universal forces eminating from the magnet is abundance.

Hence, if one of my objectives in life is to attract abundance, the way to do this by developing or uncovering my sense of sufficiency. Realizing this state of being will create a perspective of abundance and choosing from this perspective will in turn attract more abundance.

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.  And it is perhaps the primary goal most of us seek in this life. We all want to be happy. But what is it that make us happy? Researcher have suggested a number of things including (in no particular order):

1. Personal safety and security
2. Good health
3. Freedom to direct one’s life
4. Close and harmonious relationships
5. A spiritual practice
6. Financial stability
7. Low unemployment
8. Access to education
9. Leisure time
10. Low Income Equality
11. Living according to certain principles (open-mindedness, courage, kindness, love, fairness, forgiveness, humour, and appreciation)

Others in the positive psychology discipline and in buddhism have talked about how happiness is a learned behaviour. I would tend to agree with all of these ideas but add that a sense of sufficiency is at the root of lasting happiness. If we feel complete or sufficient inside, we will tend to feel happy, no matter what the external circumstances, including wealth, family, education, security etc.. If we feel sufficient, we will tend to be happy no matter what principles we live by, although we will tend to be open-minded, courageous, kind and loving, fair, forgiving, humourous, and appreciative. Happiness is a choice, which tends to derive from a sense of sufficiency and the more we are in touch with our sufficiency, the more we tend to choose happiness. There is no research to support this claim other than my own experience but the connection merits some objective exploration in the future.

Money is many things to people but few people actually understand what money represents and its implication for the economy.

Money is principally a medium of exchange.  We use it to trade for things, such as goods and services.  And as such it works very well – allowing us to avoid the older and more cumbersome system of barter – wherein we must work out how units of A trades for X units of B.  Instead,  we simply agree that goods and services have a given monetary value and we trade accordingly.

Money is also used as a store of value, since we store and value our savings in currency.  Our wealth can be said to be tied up in our money.  I am said to be rich if I have lots of money and poor if I have little or no money.

Lastly, money is also a common unit of account.  We use it to measure the many things we value – personal wealth, national debt, business performance, how much taxes we owe, etc..

What few people realize, however, is how money today itself actually derives its value.  To many people’s surprise money is not backed by gold, silver or some other precious metal nor is it backed by shells, cattle, goats or land as it was in the past.   Modern money today is actually not backed by anything of substance, at least not since the gold standard was eliminated in 1971.   Rather modern money is backed by something called “fiat” or rather by the value that we as society or as government agree to give it.  Simply put, we agree that money will be used as a medium of exchange and we set its value – rather arbitrarily – although we pretend to let market forces determine its value.

Some might argue that this is misleading – that the value of money is derived by the supply and demand for money and/or the supply and demand for a country’s goods and services.  When demand for a country’s currency or exports goes up, the value goes up and conversely so.  This is true on one level, since we do see movement in value with changes in supply or demand; however, on a deeper level the value of money has more to do with the confidence of central bankers, currency traders, and the general public in the future value of money, which is largely conjecture.

More often than not what lies behind this conjecture is fear – a fear of scarcity or a fear of lack.  We tend to value something more, the more scarce it is or conversely we  tend to value something less, the more abundant it is.  This is true of money and it is true of goods and services we value with money.  Hence, when a central banker starts to see an over-heated economy, s/he fears inflation (or a scarcity of goods and services relative to the supply of dollars) and s/he raises interest rates to curtail the supply of money.  And when a currency trader begins to see a booming Chinese economy, s/he begins to buy Canadian dollars, expecting greater demand for Canadian natural resources.  Most economists will call this the law of supply and demand but behind this law is really the human propensity to fear scarcity. We fear that the future may not provide for our needs and wants, so we scramble, manipulate and hoard in the present to safeguard ourselves.

Hence, if the value of money or the value of goods and services it represents are derived from their relative scarcity, we might say that the value of money  is really based on the fear of scarcity.  This fear is not necessarily inherent in money per se, since it is merely an instrument but it is the value that we give to money today.

And, if money is founded on the perspective of scarcity, the economy which is facilitated by money must be based in the fear of scarcity as well.  This becomes quite apparent when we look at all of the fear surrounding the economy.  Fear of booms (inflation), fear of busts, fear of debt, fear of unemployment, fear of bills, fear of capital losses, fear of taxes, and fear of shortages of basic necessities or luxuries, etc..  Fear, fear and more fear.  The currency of the modern economy is fear.