Our lives of extreme abundance (hers)

With Thanksgiving approaching, gratitude is on all of our minds.  Its physical health benefits, its mental health benefits, and the impact on our relationships will be echoed in the articles of thousands of newspaper and magazine articles this week.  Positive Psychology supports all of these findings, as we've discussed in numerous Facebook posts and past blog posts ("Why Hedonic Adaptation Undermines our Happiness" and "Sometimes it Pours").

Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943

A more subtle but equally extraordinary outcome of gratitude is how it can change our outlook on life.  By outlook on life, I mean just how bountiful, beautiful, and blessed this life looks to us each and every day.

Bob and I call this the "abundance mentality," and it is one of the most important Positive Psychology takeaways, and part of the reason Thanksgiving is such a special holiday.

Understanding why we celebrate Thanksgiving helps us understand the abundance mentality.  We gather family and friends to celebrate a sharing of abundance in Plymouth colony hundreds of years ago.  In the midst of widespread starvation, dehydration, disease, and death in the Virginia colonies, an extraordinary group of pilgrims took the time to give thanks for their lives, their families, and their health.

For a moment, a group of people in horrible conditions felt blessed, content, and happy, all because they realized how much they truly had.

The "abundance mentality" is recognizing that our lives are a source of constant abundance, not scarcity.  This is inescapably true if only we change our outlook.  Thinking "big picture," as is often said in business, reminds us that we are surrounded by abundance, and the feeling that we are lacking is a consequence of narrow thinking.

You are living and breathing, you have food to eat and water to drink, your family is healthy, and you have a roof over your head.  America in the 21st century is cleaner, safer, and more secure than the majority of human societies that has ever walked the earth.  Your life is more comfortable than the majority of humans on the planet.  Only narrow thinking could convince us that we live in anything but extreme abundance.

Norman Rockwell, Thanksgiving: Girl Praying, 1943

And yet we invent that narrow thinking through the idea of scarcity.  We make believe that we are in need, and the human brain in all its power then makes us feel in need.  Like the survival instincts that make our bodies respond to stress at work like we're in mortal danger, we invent mental diseases that plague us for a lifetime.  The idea that we are lacking is one of those diseases.

The "abundance mentality" is the pill for the disease of scarcity.  The first step is being aware of this invention of scarcity.  Catch yourself the next time your partner wants something different than you for dinner.  The second step is investigating this feeling.  Am I really lacking because I'm eating salad and beef instead of noodles and fruit?  The third step is correcting it.  No, I'm not lacking, my life is overflowing with blessings, and I'm so grateful.

Of course, as with all of us, it is practicing this that is the difficult part.  This Thanksgiving, share with your friends or family the idea of the "abundance mentality," and in doing so, you'll have already accomplished 3 of the 4 steps of adult learning:  reading, discussing, and teaching.  All that's left is practicing, and once you're able to do that, you'll reap the benefits of living a life that always feels more than enough.