Saudi Prince Buys an Airbus A 380: Thoughts on Abundance
© Anthony Miskin – Fotolia.com
Saudi Prince Buys an Airbus A 380: Thoughts on Abundance
By Nick Grimshawe
Everything is Relative.
When I look at my mortgage payment,
car payment and a few other expenses,
then look at my pay check I see scarcity.
When I look around my house and all the things
within it, I see abundance. Along comes a Saudi Prince, who plucks down over 300 million for the largest passenger jet in the world for his own personal use, and my mini SUV, a Ford Focus, shrinks into insignificance.
I sat in a restaurant this afternoon having coffee. From my vantage point by the window, I saw a parking lot full of cars, all different makes, years, and status. I see abundance, several million dollars of abundance. However, any one of the those owners, climbing back into their car, and wondering how to meet their next car payment, see scarcity.
A subsistence farmer in the horn of Africa, views my home and processions as if I where a Saudi Prince.
The Saudi Prince makes his money in oil, the price of which is driven by scarcity. Out of scarcity comes the Prince’s abundance. Oil is energy. Energy is the coin of the universe, and very abundant.
Do you see where I am going?
Everything is relative.
Abundance Arrives Out of Nothing
Many of you may not believe that statement. I ask you to close your eyes and create a sentence, a simple ordinary sentence. Let me see: I like ice cream. Where did that come from? Even when I wrote, “let me see,†I didn’t know what I would write. The words came out of the void, to jump fully formed, onto this page. What words did you string together?
I wrote notes for this article, but the substance comes to me as I write, through some magical process of creation. Creation is the act of materializing something from nothing.
All Art, Music, Technology, everything, materializes out of the void: Nothing, then abundance.
So where am I going with this?
Escaping the Relativity Trap
I give you part of the second verse of the Tao Te Ching from Wayne Dyer’s wonderful book,
Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
Only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Abundance and Scarcity represent the same thing, depending only on viewpoint.
Instead of laying the abundance/scarcity coin flat on a surface so you can only see one side or the other, try balancing the coin up right so that you can see both sides with only a slight shift of your eyes. You could even spin in like a top, so that abundance then scarcity flash by one after the other, breaking the hold of the single “flat world viewâ€.
Also note as the coin stops spinning how it reverts to the “flat world view†requiring an effort on your part to spin the coin again.
Try it: spin the coin. Have some fun, and let me know about your own observation.
Nick
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Thank you for this.
When I started going to school my mother prayed for the $6 a week tuition. When I went on to high school she prayed for the $12 a week tuition. When I went to college she prayed but turned it completely over to God to take care of and He did.
She taught me by her actions that we can always get what we need starting with faith that God will somehow provide.
Hi Joyce,
That is a beautiful story and illustrates the article perfectly. Your mother had faith. She did not question, she believed. She did not look at her situation and throw up her hands, and say, sorry money is scarce. She saw instead abundance enough to pay the fees each week.
Just taking a different look at something can change the equation from scacity to abundance. Now how magical is that?
Have a beautiful summer morning,
Nick
Hi Nick,
You are so right, it is relative,
Scarcity and abundance are things that we create. a Chinese saying comes to mind don’t remember who said it !
‘I grumbled because I had no shoes, till I met a man who had no feet!’
My living in India teaches me a lot about this, everyday has a new lesson for me.
Blessings
Pauline R
Hi Pauline,
Thanks for your comments, they are greatly apprecaited. I had a lot of fun writing that article because I wanted to understand for myself just what Abundance really meant. But Abundance is not a definition, it is a point of view. You can’t say a person is abundant becuase they have 100,000 dollars in their saving account, cause they might owe 1,000,000 dollars due tomorrow. If you believe you are abundant, live in a shack and only have bananas to eat, you are abundant.
Your Chinese saying is exactly right, it is relative.
The neat thing is, just by changing how you look at a condition, you can change that condition and I thing that is so amazing and wonderful.
I am sure a life in India, filled with the contrasts you must see every day, gives you amazing insights into the nature of things.
Pauline You have won my comment prize for this week. I have your email I believe and I will be in touch.
Nick
Hi Nick,
Great article, I got the feeling you really enjoyed writing it.
All of us go through tough times and as a result appreciate the good times all th more. But here’s where it gets sticky. What’s good for me could be terrible for someone sles and vice versa. It’s all relative to your outlook on life and your expectations.
I always liked and appreciated the biblical saying (my translation from Hebrew). “Who is the rich man?? The one that is happy/satisfied with his share (what he has)”.
Take your coin or the cup of water that could be seen as either half full or half empty. It’s all a question of attitude and outlook on life. I always prfered to see the cup as being half full and not half empty.
All the best & Shalom,
Peter
WOW Nick
THANK YOU indeed !!!
This sure is a pleasant surprise, I have answered you mail.
Grace n Peace to you,
Pauline R
Hi Peter,
Yes, I did have fun writing the article. I accomplished several goals all in one article. I wanted to use a headline that came from the current news files to attract attention, I wanted to think with the idea, play with it a bit, and the Saudi Prince gave me a great spring board. And I was perhaps surprised at where I ended up with the “flat world view” and the spinning coin.
The thirsty man doesn’t care how much water is in the cup, even a single drop is abundance to him.
Have a beautiful summer morning every day,
Nick Grimshawe
Dear Nick,
Thank you so very much for the prize.. a beautiful 2008 calendar and your note.
Wish you all thats best for the coming year and more.
Keep doing what you do to bring pleasure to so many of your friends.
Many blessings always
Your friend
Pauline R
Hi Pauline,
Thanks for letting me know the Calendar arrived okay. The Calendar was a moderate success and I just sold my last two copies. I’ll have to come up with another prize now.
I intend to keep doing what I’m doing to , I hope , an ever growing circle of friends.
To Your Beautiful Summer Morning,
Nick