So goes the question that attempts to discern how you look at your life and at the world. Do you see your life as lacking essential elements that you need to have in order to feel safe, secure, and self-actualized? Or do you see the resources in your life as being a good start to something more?
In the past decade, social scientists have been investigating the effects of scarcity – the lack of essential resources for living. It has long been observed that individuals and families who are having a hard time financially often make bad decisions – take on a payday loan, or purchase meals from a restaurant rather than cook at home. So, the question was asked: Are these folks making bad decisions for their future and those decisions cause them to have fewer resources? Or does the reality that they already have had some setbacks cause them to make poor decisions? If the former, then the solution is to help them learn more productive behaviors. If the latter, then all the financial education they would receive would not change the outcome.
And, in fact, the second is true. When we are in a situation where we feel our resources are scarce, we make bad decisions about how to use those resources. This has been tested in various ways in multiple published studies, and the results seem to be consistent. Even when we are not facing a life-sustaining or life-threatening situation, even when the resource that is in short supply is only the number of bonus points we might receive in a game, our brains switch to a more primitive functioning, and we can only see short-sighted solutions our dilemma. This has been dubbed a “scarcity mindset.”
If you took economics in high school or college (I didn’t!), one of the first principles you probably learned was the law of supply and demand. When the supply of a resource decreases, and the demand stays the same, the price will increase. The marketing industry has seized on this principle and developed a technique called “scarcity marketing.” When scarcity marketing is employed, there isn’t really any scarcity – there is only a suggestion that there might be scarcity – to cause the price the consumer is willing to pay to increase: “Limited Offer; Only a few left; Don’t Miss Out!” and our brains switch to that more primitive mode and we make a bad decision to purchase something we didn’t need.
Social media has amplified our sense of scarcity. All of a sudden we see that we aren’t thin enough, aren’t smart enough, aren’t healthy enough, aren’t successful enough, don’t have enough friends or followers, and all it will take is (fill in the blank) – a new car, a new outfit, a different home – and we will feel better about ourselves. We swim in an environment of scarcity surrounded by messages that we just aren’t enough – we need something more.
Think about the ways that you might be getting drawn into the scarcity mentality as you go through your life these next few weeks. In September, we will explore how we, especially we as Christians, are able to recognize and leave behind that narrow view of our lives, our church, and our world. Because, actually, your cup is neither half empty or half full – your cup runneth over.
