When "Do Something" Fails, There Is Another Way

In a recent post, I compared modern medicine with holistic, nourishing healthcare approaches. A reader responded with a question about the problem that many people cannot afford enough to eat, let alone afford holistic healthcare. 

It seems to be a simple math problem (math that even I can understand): too many people in need and not enough nourishment available.

But the lack we see in the world around us is an artificially created lack, rather than an actual shortage of resources. (For example, research shows that only about 22% of the food produced by the Industrial Food Chain actually nourishes people; the rest is wasted or over-consumed¹).

Nature is abundant (when we look after her) but humanity seems to be locked into an experience of scarcity. Why?

Greed is a symptom, not the cause

One apparent answer is that the problem is greed on the part of the haves, at the expense of the have-nots.

I said “apparent,” because greed is itself a response to lack. It’s a symptom, not the cause, of the problem².

But don’t greedy over-consumers have more than enough?

Yes, they have more than enough of the superficial things. But the superficial things don’t meet deep human needs for things like connection, meaning, and purpose.

All of us are experiencing lack

Over-consumption is an effort to appease the emptiness, the loneliness, the lack of connection, purpose, and true power (power within self, and power with others, as opposed to power over others) that are common experiences in our culture.

All of us are experiencing lack of one kind or another. For some its physical; for others its psychic; for many it’s both.

So, my reader asked in her comment, is there a solution?

My short answer is: No, I don’t know of a straight forward solution that satisfies the logical mind. When we as individuals want to “do something,” there is nothing obvious we can do that would make enough of a difference.

But my long answer is that when all the direct outer “doing” has failed and we’re ready to collapse in defeat, other, indirect, “non-doing” approaches open themselves up to us.

The logical mind wants to muscle its way to the results we want. And when muscle is inadequate to the task, we think we’ve failed and we’re beaten.

The heart, on the other hand, is not afraid to invoke the results we want by the quality of our attention and the power of our desire to give what we don’t physically have to give.   

If we have the luxury that my reader described, of having enough to eat and being able to afford nourishing, holistic medicine, it might be said that we have a moral responsibility to attend to the psychic hunger in ourselves and in the world around us.

We can address this at any time, no physical resources needed. 

Small acts in the building of more abundance for the world

Someone close to you, or someone you meet today, might be desperate for an experience of being truly seen, truly listened to, without judgement or advice.  

If you give it to them, two things might happen: One, you yourself might feel a glimmering of purpose or meaning or contribution – an easing of the emptiness in you.

And two, maybe the person you gift with your full presence and unconditional acceptance might be fortified enough to pay it forward: a small act in the building of more abundance in the world.

And sometimes, the person you take the time to be fully present with might not be another person. It might “just” be … you.

How we attend to our psychic needs and to our inner world, how we metabolize our personal internal experiences of lack³, has a direct bearing on how we collectively are able to address physical lack in the outer world.

Ignoring our own internal sense of lack, in a sense is a way of condoning other experiences of lack in the world around us.