Why abundance is never personal on compassion as a state, not a duty

When there isn't enough

I don't know scarcity from books. There were months when I was short of everything at once: money, time, energy. And the most noticeable thing wasn't buying less or sleeping less. It was how my attitude to people changed.

I didn't want to talk to anyone. And when I did go to see someone, I went not to give but to get. To recharge, to vent, to feel a bit lighter. The person in front of me became a source to draw from. Now I understand that a meeting like that is a loss for both sides: I leave with crumbs, and they leave feeling that something has been taken out of them.

I think this is a general rule. A state of scarcity produces scarcity behavior, even in good people. Here are a few typical situations almost everyone will recognize.

Someone has barely slept after a hard week. A colleague asks for ten minutes of help, and irritation rises inside, even though in a normal week they would have been glad to help.

Two friends meet after a long break. One of them spends the whole evening talking about his problems and doesn't ask a single question. He isn't a bad friend. He is simply empty, and he came to fill up.

Someone who is broke goes to a birthday party. Instead of celebrating, they spend the whole evening silently calculating their share of the bill.

There is a scientific side to this observation. Mullainathan, Shafir and their colleagues tested farmers in India who receive most of their income once a year, after the sugarcane harvest. The same people did worse on attention and reasoning tasks before the harvest, when money was tight, than after it, when they had money Source 2. Same people, same abilities. Only their state had changed. The authors explain it this way: worrying about scarcity takes up part of the mind, leaving less of it for everything else.

Compassion isn't about every stray dog

When I say "compassion," many people picture a duty. You see a hungry dog, you feed it. You see a homeless person, you help. If you don't, you're a bad person. Understood this way, compassion quickly turns into a burden, and you want to shut yourself off from it.

I understand it differently, and the understanding closest to me comes from the Buddhist tradition. There, compassion is neither an action nor a rule. It is how you relate to a world full of living beings. It matters to you that they are better off, that their suffering grows smaller.

Actions grow out of this state, but not just any actions and not at any cost. You can calmly walk past a dog and still be in compassion. Or you can feed every dog in the neighborhood out of guilt and have nothing to do with the state of compassion at all.

Ideally, compassion wants more than a full stomach. I would like a living being to come to an awareness of itself: to see itself as the one who experiences all of its experience, not only as that experience. That is a long way off, and it can't be done quickly. But that is the direction for me: creating an environment where living beings are well, and where they have a chance to find that awareness.

Yourself first

There are two phrases that usually sound like excuses: "everyone for themselves" and "take care of yourself first." I fully agree with the second one, I just understand it in my own way.

You are a living being just like everyone else. If compassion is a way of relating to living beings, then the first living being it applies to is you. Taking care of yourself means creating the right state for yourself. And from that state you can change things around you, because everything you do reflects the state you're in.

Every airplane offers a good everyday analogy. Before takeoff, they tell you: if the oxygen mask drops, put yours on first, then help the person next to you. That isn't selfishness. A person without oxygen can't help anyone.

I think the way you treat yourself is the most honest sign of whether you have this state or not. You can talk about loving the world while not getting enough sleep for months, eating whatever comes along and scolding yourself for every mistake.

If the state isn't there, you can grow it. For me these are very physical things: exercise, thoughtful eating, sleep, sauna, cold exposure, massage. Everything that makes me feel good. This isn't a prescription or advice: everyone has their own set, and health questions are best discussed with a doctor. It's simply what love and compassion for myself look like in my life.

Abundance wants to be shared

When there is enough inside, you no longer have to force yourself to share. Even the word "want" isn't quite right here: it happens by itself, as a continuation of the state.

Take the same people from the examples above, only well rested, calm and with something to spare. A colleague asks for help, and you help without even noticing. A friend talks about his difficulties, and you listen, because you have something to listen with. The restaurant bill stops being the topic of the evening.

So my answer to "everyone for themselves" isn't "no, you have to think about others." "Have to" is scarcity again, only moral scarcity. My answer is simpler: take care of yourself for real, to the point where you have something to spare. After that, "everyone for themselves" stops being true without any effort.

That's where the title of this text comes from. Abundance that is kept to oneself stops being abundance. It turns back into savings for a rainy day, and saving for a rainy day is a scarcity mindset.

Where to start: small groups

Changing the whole world at once isn't possible, and I'm not trying to. A different path seems realistic to me: starting with small groups of people for whom compassion and love are a baseline state rather than a holiday mood.

In a group like that, people naturally act so that life inside is better, more comfortable, more pleasant for everyone. Results come out of this: shared solutions, shared things, shared knowledge. These results strengthen the state, and it spreads further, to those around the group.

I start with the people close to me, the ones I interact with all the time. I try to build systems that cover the basic needs of at least my inner circle, so that people don't have to think every day about where to get the essentials. In some areas my knowledge isn't enough for this yet. So I'm open to working with people who know more than I do and want to do the same thing.

This site is one such attempt too. While you're reading, I hope something opens up inside you: a different view of what compassion and love are, and above all toward yourself. If that happened even for a minute, this text has done what I wrote it for.

Where technology is heading

There is one more reason why I think abundance will become shared rather than personal. It has to do with artificial intelligence.

The price of almost any product or service is largely made up of human labor: someone came up with it, made it, checked it, delivered it. AI is taking on more and more of that work. The less human labor remains in the cost, the cheaper goods become and the wider the choice. And what has become cheaper is easier to distribute among everyone.

The idea of an unconditional basic income often comes up alongside this topic: regular payments to every person simply because they are a person, with no conditions or means tests. What such an income, and a generous one, might look like in a world of cheap goods is something I'll explore in a future article.

1. 1

   Scarcity changes behavior: even good people, when short of resources, go to others to take.

2. 2

   Compassion is a state, not an obligation to help everyone.

3. 3

   The first living being it applies to is you. How you treat yourself shows whether it's there.

4. 4

   You don't have to force yourself to share abundance: it overflows on its own.

5. 5

   It makes sense to start with small groups where this state is the baseline, and with your inner circle.

In place of a conclusion

I began with a confession about periods of scarcity. If you notice that you're going to people to get something, you can first return to yourself: get some sleep, move a little, spend some time in silence. And then go.

Try watching yourself tomorrow. What do you bring when you go to people: a wish to take, or something to share?

I'm interested in people who ask themselves questions like these. Who take care of themselves without guilt and share without a sense of obligation. Who want to live among others for whom it also matters that everyone is well. I'll keep writing about abundance, about living together and about how AI is changing the cost of things. If you'd like to keep reading, subscribe to new texts.