The 7 Laws of Enough by Gina Laroche & Jennifer Cohen

Author:Gina Laroche & Jennifer Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Parallax Press
Published: 2018-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

The Great Inversions

We’ve made some unfortunate inversions in our society. Instead of simply feeling worthy themselves, some people make others feel less worthy. Rather than recognizing that we are finite, we’ve created a profound sense of scarcity about the things that are infinitely available.

INVERSION #1: LETTING GO OF ENTITLEMENT

In 1948 the United Nations issued a Universal Declaration of Human Rights that set out, “for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected….” These rights include but are not limited to: “the right to life, liberty, and security of person,” being “entitled to equal protection of the law,” “freedom of thought,” and “the right to work…to rest and leisure.”31

Yet in the scarcity story these fundamental human rights get chipped away and a shadow side of our rights arises. In our belief that we are exempt, we start to think we are entitled to be above or separate from others. We are not suggesting that human beings ought not to have human rights. We are suggesting that rights can sour into a sense of entitlement that justifies all manner of scarcity driven behavior.

One example is people who are rude to servers at restaurants—they think they’re paying good money and are entitled to what they expect! And if they don’t get it, they are entitled to berate the staff. No. They aren’t exempt from common decency, nor do they have any right to abuse another person.

Another example is customer support—we pay a lot for our devices, shouldn’t they always work perfectly? And if they don’t, aren’t we entitled to yell at the technical support people? Of course not. They’re people, doing their jobs as well as they can.

We all have bad days—both as the ones doing the serving, and the ones being served—but nobody is entitled to be a jerk to someone else.

We all want to be treated humanely by individuals, groups, and governments. With the simple “do unto others” in mind, we can remind ourselves we aren’t entitled to treat others any less than we want to be treated.

We also aren’t entitled to things—a house or a car, a career…not even to health and happiness! These expectations feed the entitled scarcity story and support the delusion that we are unique and, therefore, especially deserving.

If we drop our expectations, entitlement can fall away and we can find a place where we can be deeply grateful for that which we do have. There is a great scene in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel where one person is asking another, “Why do you love India so much?” and the other answers, “Because, in India, people see life as a privilege and not a right.”32

Entitlement and gratitude cannot inhabit the same space. The former occludes the latter, casting a shadow over its steady luminous glow. Entitlement lives in the story of separation. Gratitude comes straight from the well of sufficiency.

INVERSION #2: OUR STRUGGLE WITH FINITUDE

We are all finite and we are all going to die. It isn’t fair. Or maybe it is.

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