Your Lifestyle is like a Cup

In terms of money, Income is sort of water that you pour into the cup.

Your expenses are the things that drain water from your cup, lets imagine it as evaporation.

The Cup itself, can be big or small depending on your needs.

The question is, how BIG of a cup do you need?

Will you be FULL-filled when you have the cup size that you WANT?

Consider it, the lifestyle you want to live and if it’s worth it.

If you don’t like your lifestyle, then you will have to trade your old life for a new one.

Thoughts on Abundance and having ‘enough’;

I was looking into Shadow work with money and abundance, and often times people have troubles with the idea of ‘having enough’. People’s internal relationship with an idea or identity of having and not having is a constant struggle for many people.

Being abundant or in abundance can be defined as having enough. By definition, if we always have enough then we’re abundant.

Thinking we need more or don’t have enough, is a scarcity mindset. It’s of a mindset that we don’t have enough or don’t have access to what we need. That we are lacking.

So when we live below our means, and realize we have enough, then we’re abundant.

If that’s not the case, then we must change our means or change how we live.

It’s rather a simple equation really, simple math using words that mean things.

Abundance = Lifestyle < Means of living

Scarcity = Lifestyle > Means of living

Either make the lifestyle simpler, or make the means of living larger. The key part is realizing when ‘enough is enough’. Often times people will have plenty and live in wealth, but never feel like they have enough. That is a shame and a greed that is often a trauma based response from their upbringing.

Here is a story from Kurt Vonnegut;

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer and I were at a party given by a billionaire.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Enough is a glorious word, and that word can apply to all sorts of things. Enough food? Enough friends? Enough family? Enough love? What metrics or dimensions do you compare having and having not enough of? Enough brains? Money? Brawn? Cars? Houses? Things? Materials? Emotions? Experiences? Wisdom? Knowledge?

We can measure all sorts of things and ask ourselves if we have enough of it.

In terms of the Muse;

When you know what you want, when you have to do it like your life depends on it or you’ll go insane, then you’ll make do with what you have to achieve it. If you’re driven by the madness of the muse to do or create, then whatever you have becomes enough to do or make.

In todays world, we often have smart phones capable of doing so much, we can write and make videos, we have more than enough to get started. But often times our mind and worries puts a scarcity mindset into thinking we don’t have enough, that we don’t look good enough, sound good enough, know enough, etc. The lists of things we THINK we don’t have enough of prevents us from doing something pure and humbling. If we were babies learning to walk with this mindset, we’d never run in our lives.

In terms of Peace;

When we are in a stable place, when it is quiet and bored, we can reflect and think whether we have enough. To sit with our feelings and thoughts for a bit, to realize we need not act in the very moment. It’s being present in the Here and Now that allows us to achieve a sort of ZEN state of peace.

So choose when enough is enough, and reach into the abundance of the universe to allow the powerful meaningful word of ‘enough’ reach through your being to go and do the thing you want to do.

And just know, every failure is one step closer to actually doing the thing. (as long as you’re not doing something actually life threatening or fatal).

Epilogue;

To learn what the word Lifestyle and Enough are allows us to live a better one. That’s the power of words and thoughts. That we can follow a sort of train of thought, use a metaphor or analogy, see how others do well, and combine it to reach some awesome and worthy conclusions.

If you think of this article, or any book, as a linear line of text, it’s akin to a river.

As Heraclitus says; “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Thus, I hope after reading this ‘passage’ of texts, that you are no longer the same person with this new found insight or reinforcing old wisdom having ‘passed this river’. Even if you revisit this article, may you realize that the words are similar, yet they’re not the same.

Afterall, Words Mean Things, and meaning changes. Especially when the meaning is judged by the eye of the beholder, which is, you.