Sufficiency excerpt from: The Soul of Money

Sufficiency
excerpt from: The Soul of Money
By Lynne Twist

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency.
By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It’s an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.
It means using money in a way that expresses our integrity and that expresses value rather than determines value. Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to us the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resources. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough.
I’m not suggesting that there is ample water in the desert or food for the beggars in Bombay. I’m saying that even in the presence of genuine scarcity of external resources, the desire and capacity for self-sufficiency are innate and enough to meet the challenges we face.
It’s precisely when we turn our attention to these inner resources—in fact, only when we do that—that we can begin to see more clearly the sufficiency in us and available to us. We can then begin to generate effective, sustainable responses to whatever limitations of resources confront us. When we let go of the chase for more, and consciously examine and experience the resources we already have, we discover our resources are deeper than we knew or imagined.
And in the nourishment of our attention, our assets expand and grow.