Of Poverty, Perception and Deception

I have been thinking lately a lot about letting go and its connection to the perception of poverty. I'm not talking about absolute poverty, where the means of survival are seriously compromised (lack of food/water/oxygen), but of perceived poverty of all sorts.

If I think I'm poor, I will see myself as needy, look for anyone/anything to fill my gap and therefore open myself up to all sorts of snares...

How many people for example think they are lacking in beauty, and therefore are open to all sorts of advertised products, phony diets and flattery, without actually coming to terms with the fact that the first step to beauty comes from within!

If I think I'm under-appreciated, I will easily fall pray to being critical and become envious and stingy with my praise, because I think that I should be receiving not giving... and yet, it is a form of slavery!

It is easy, but it is still a skewered view of reality, to see oneself as the eternal victim of a zero sum game, where everything somebody else has is somehow taken from me leaving me with less simply because somebody else has it.

Life is abundant and generous! There is more in this world than what we actually need, more of love, more of light, more of friendship, more of being honored... we live in a surplus world where generosity leads to inner health and strength more than hoarding ever will.

Also, I think there is a distinction to be made between lacking and being poor. I can be lacking many things (time, sleep, money, handcream, smiles, patience), but that doesn't mean I'm poor. I might not have all that I want, but still I'm not poor. I become poor the moment I allow my lack to define me.

And that will open me up for deception of many kinds, because it is based on un-truth, unreality. The reality is that I can afford to be generous, even in the midst of my lack, because being stingy will not give me anything either, whereas generosity and abundance is built in the very fibre of the universe as one of its key principles... think of the amount of sunsets, and seeds, and stars, and trees and rivers and dust particles and sperm cells: there is simply an overflow of stuff!

The antidote to hoarding, the key to letting go, the key to generosity is found in perceiving myself as provided for, as a have and not as a have-not! Not denying the lack, but not allowing it to define me either... It seems that sometimes the only way to change how I see myself in this respect is by being generous... NOW!