Creating a “You-and-Me” World

“…a world where we live in the context and truth of sufficiency and respect for enough, exactly enough for everyone everywhere;

A world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out;

A world where solidarity replaces charity, and a world where the dream is a dream not for some at the expense of others, but a dream for all;

A world where the intelligent and benevolent “force” of Nature is the force that we respect and align with;

A world where the love of money is replaced by the use of money as an expression of love.”

– The Soul of Money (Lynne Twist)

I felt the tears pool in my eyes as I read the above passage. I had never read anything that described my vision for a world of collaboration and connection quite like this did.

Some people may read the passage and say it’s not possible, and that I’m hopelessly dreaming. And that’s okay, I don’t mind. I’ve seen the magic of what can happen when the use of money is aligned with someone’s soul and heart and they use it in a way that transcends scarcity and instead creates joy – in their world and the world of others.

If you haven’t read “The Soul of Money,” it’s an incredible book that discusses the power that scarcity holds in our everyday lives and our world. It talks about sufficiency, and how one of the most important things we’ll ever do as spiritual beings having a human experience is to break free of the scarcity context that has been created in our world in almost every area of our life.

We never have enough time. We never have enough money. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, all day long we’re being reminded in various ways of the scarcity and the “not enoughness” of our situation.

And it takes real courage to step back from what’s so prevalent in our society and stand for something different, to stand for your life and a healthy relationship with money. Taking that up a notch even further, it takes a tremendous amount of awareness and courage to then use that healthy relationship with money to be part of the contribution to the thriving world that Buckminster Fuller (a well-known visionary from the mid-to-late 20th century) called a “you-and-me” world.

The “you-and-me” world is in direct contrast to the “you-or-me” world that we live in now that is filled with the energy of scarcity, competition, greed, and fear. The “you-or-me” world has us believe that there isn’t enough and therefore we must compete with others to get our fair share so that we can survive. It’s a “survival of the fittest” mentality and it blocks our ability to connect with and love others in the powerful way of which we’re capable.

A “you-or-me” world is filled with the energy of scarcity with words/phrases/feelings like this: never enough; emptiness; fear; mistrust; envy; greed; hoarding; competition; separateness; judgment; entitlement; control; busy; and survival. (source: The Soul of Money)

A “you-and-me” world is filled with the energy of sufficiency with words/phrases/feelings like this: gratitude; fulfillment; love; trust; respect; contribution; faith; compassion; wholeness; commitment; acceptance; partnership; responsibility; and resilience. (source: The Soul of Money)

It may not necessarily be easy to shift from our current experience to the “you-and-me” world that’s described here, and thankfully I see more and more of the positive world each and every day.

For me, it’s been important to intentionally focus time on what a “you-and-me” world looks like for me, even if I didn’t necessarily have a phrase or description for it until reading this book. It is with intention that I can create the energy of sufficiency in my life, and align how I use my money with the things that matter most to me.

So what does a “you-and-me” world look like for you? If you’ve never stopped to ask yourself that question before, perhaps with spirit of optimism and new chances that comes with the new year you can spend some time contemplating what you can do to move beyond scarcity into a world where you have enough (and perhaps even an abundance) of everything.

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