Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
– Wayne Dyer
The origin of the word abundance
What is abundance? This noun comes to us from the mid-14th century French, via the Latin abundantia, meaning “fullness, plenty.” A life of abundance is usually associated with wealth and affluence. Having been born and raised in a post-communist European country, I know what abundance is not: “I do not have enough” and “I am not enough”.
Just this evening as I was sharing a meal with my family over a Christmas table abundant with good food and wines, my Dad complained that from all the cakes he bought he could not buy that specific “negresa”, a chocolate cake, because other people managed to buy it first. For a brief moment, we were not paying attention and being grateful for what we already have, but on what was not present on the table.
The abundance mindset
Having been brought up in a culture and country where the scarcity mentality was and still is omnipresent, I see the adoption of the abundance mentality as my only way of unclenching my fists and enjoying life more. There is enough. We are enough. I also learned how to cultivate this mindset by via negativa: focusing on what to avoid and not perpetuate from the scarcity mindset I adopted as a child.
Thinking Big vs Thinking Small
Plenty vs Lack
Happiness vs Resentment
Embracing Change vs Fear Of Change
Proactive vs Reactive
Learning vs Knowing It All
What Is Working vs What Is Not Working
Envisioning abundance
How can we envision abundance? I think everyone has a personal take, a mental image on how abundance feels and looks like. Abundance is for me a big dinner table with home-cooked meals, surrounded by loved ones. Sharing food, sharing stories, sharing life-moments.
Last night after the cake incident with my Dad, I watched the movie “Don’t Look Up”, and in one of the final scenes, as Earth is about to be hit by a comet and the whole world destroyed, Dr Randall says: “Thing of it is, we really… We really did have everything, didn’t we?”.
Yes, we did. We had everything. We have everything.