15 Abundant generosity

Generosity - a virtue many of us aspire to - is not just about giving money away, or sharing tangible things. It is also generosity of spirit, magnanimity: being genuinely happy for other people's successes and fortune, rather than jealous or resentful. If we make a mental shift to abundance, if we realise we live in a world of plenty, we are no longer in endless competition, and generosity of spirit comes naturally. The same effect occurs with financial generosity. Realising we live in an abundant world makes us naturally generous.

Transcript

Welcome to Cornucopia, the podcast in which we examine the shift to abundance. My name is Karim Benammar, and on today's walk, let's explore generosity.

Today, I'm walking in a forest here in the Netherlands. You can hear the birds. It's still quite cool because it's the end of the morning. Sun dappling through the trees - and this is a good space to examine this idea of generosity: being generous, giving. Being generous, as a quality, as a virtue, as something that we aspire to. 

You can see that if the world is abundant, then it's relatively easy for us to be generous. You can see how the concept of abundance - there is more than you need -  can then be turned into personal abundance. If I have more than I need, then certainly I can give my surplus, my excess, what I have spare. I can give a lot of it away. If there is a sense of overflow and overflowing world, an overflowing sense of value, an overflowing bathtub, then everything that I don't need for myself I can easily give away.

But before we get to thinking in terms of generosity and value, and generosity and money, and generosity in things that you can give away, I'd like to explore a different aspect of generosity. The idea of a generous mind, the idea of generosity of spirit. This idea of generosity of spirit is tied to the idea of being magnanimous, magnanimity, which is a word without its root magnum: great. A great mind, a large mind, a large spirit, as opposed to a small spirit, what we call pettiness, the idea that you focus on small things and they make you angry, disappointed, jealous, envious.

Magnanimity: generosity of spirit, allowing and rooting for other people's success, being happy when good things happen to other people. And apart from the fact that that's a virtue that I think is worth cultivating - because it makes the world happier, but it also makes you happier - I think it's interesting to look at how that is related to abundance. If we live in a world that is abundant, if we recognize this abundance, if we see this abundance, if we allow ourselves to make a shift to abundance, then we can also make a shift towards becoming magnanimous, to becoming generous in spirit.

It's not a question of forcing ourselves to become magnanimous. We could think of generosity of spirit, magnanimity, as something that we would like to cultivate, something that we would like to work on, something that we want to practice. I think it's possible, but I think it's much more interesting to see how we naturally become generous, we naturally become magnanimous. If there is a sense of discipline necessary to be generous, if it's hard work, then I think we're doing something wrong. We could become magnanimous if we make this shift towards an abundant mindset. So how is this question of abundance related to the question of generosity?

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The fundamental realization of abundance, as we've seen in some of our other explorations, is this idea that there is so much more than you will ever need. So much more than I will need now, at this moment, but also so much more than I will need in the future. I don't have to be afraid of the future, because there's going to be plenty. Through human ingenuity, and through human creativity, and we will add after this talk through human generosity, we can create, and we do create a world of plenty. And, in a world of plenty, we are no longer in competition with each other.

The opposite, as we've seen, is this idea of scarcity. This idea that there is never enough, there is never enough for all my needs at the moment - and projected into the future, this great fear, this great anxiety, that there will not be enough in the future. 

And when there isn't enough, we fight. We fight against each other. We fight against nature because we think there is not enough in nature. And when you have this idea, there is not enough for everybody. Only some people are going to make it. Only some people are going to become wealthy. Only some people are going to do well. Only some people are going to be safe. Only some people are going to acquire a high status with which they can impress other people.

When we're in competition with each other for a limited number of prizes, you can see that we could be jealous of somebody else's success. They made it and we didn't. We can be envious of what other people have achieved. Why did they make it and why didn't I? Why were they successful and why wasn't I? We can begrudge people their success. We can begrudge them their wealth. We can begrudge them their happiness even. This sense of jealousy, of envy, of holding a grudge against somebody - sometimes people we don't even know - is because there is a sense of deep unfairness.

Sometimes, we also think that they didn't particularly deserve it. They just happened to be lucky, or they had advantages that I didn't have. And so there is a deep sense of unfairness at the heart of this. The pain that we feel because of this unfairness I s then projected outward onto the other person. We even feel justified in being resentful of their success, of begrudging them their achievements. We are justified because it was unfair, because they had advantages, because they just happened to be lucky. Why them and why not me? 

And sometimes the pain is so strong, that we would rather see somebody else fail, even if it doesn't mean that we win. Even when we're not in direct competition, we start begrudging everybody their success, to the point that when something bad happens to other people, we rejoice. There is a famous term in German, Schadenfreude, which means happiness at somebody else's misfortune. The fact that other people fail, the fact that other people don't achieve what they set out to do, the fact that bad things happen to other people makes us feel good. 

And I don't know about you, but I've certainly felt that. I'm not proud of it. I think I felt it at times when I was unhappy with myself, and I projected it out onto towards other people. If I'm going to be unhappy, then I would rather the whole world be unhappy, or the people I consider competitors to have failed. Because then at least we have all failed together. I imagine that you are a much better person than I am, and that you don't feel this kind of resentment, this happiness at their misfortune, this Schadenfreude. But people do feel it or we feel it at some points in our lives.

There are other people I imagine who are genuinely happy when something good happens to other people. I'm glad this worked out for you. The fact that it worked out for you, the fact that you were successful, the fact that wonderful things happened to you, that you were lucky, is not going to take away from my luck, is not going to take away from my chance at happiness. These things are not related. I am happy because of your happiness. I am happy for you.

And this capacity to be happy for other people's happiness, to rejoice at their fortune, to rejoice at their joy, I think is a beautiful quality, because it spreads joy. You are happy for the people who are fortunate, and you become fortunate in being happy for them. This is this law of abundance, of spreading joy: your happiness makes other people happy, their happiness makes you happy. And so we can all share in that joy, we can all make each other happy, without my happiness taking away from yours or the other way around.

And honestly I don't know how rare this is, this capacity for always being happy for the other person. I do know that there is a Buddhist teaching tale about a group of monks having to choose a new leader, because the old one passed on. They have to decide amongst themselves: who is the most worthy of becoming the abbott. They decide to ask the blind monk, because the blind monk can't see the behavior of people, but he is very attuned to their voices. And the blind monk says: I would choose this monk because I can hear in their voice that they are genuinely happy when good things happen to the other monks. I never hear, I never hear pettiness, or resentment, or jealousy. I just hear genuine joy. One way to read this story, I think, is to realize that it's a rare quality, that it's a worthy quality to cultivate in ourselves.

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So how do we make this shift from smallness of spirit to a large spirit, a magnanimous spirit, a generous spirit? How do we shift from a sense of envy, and jealousy, and resentment, and even Schadenfreude, to a sense of genuine joy, and genuine happiness for the fortune of others? This idea that their joy doesn't diminish my joy, that their joy increases my joy, that my joy f or their success will increase their joy. That to me is clearly a shift from a world of scarcity, a mind set of scarcity, the idea that we are fighting, that we're constantly in competition with each other - and that there can only be a few winners - to the idea that all of us can be successful, all of us could be joyous, and that somebody else's joy and happiness is not going to take away from my joy.

So what I'm proposing is that we can work on this largeness of spirit, this magnanimity, this generosity of spirit, through the realization of abundance. If we are not in competition with each other, then everybody can win. Everybody can be successful. Everybody can be joyous and their joy, and their success, doesn't take anything away from me. It doesn't make my success or my achievements less likely ,or less important. 

In fact, we can all support each other, root for each other, be happy at each other's successes. And the happier we are about each other's successes, the more successful we can all become - whatever that may mean for us. The more joyous we can become. The more we can have a sense that we're worthy, that this is a world of plenty. This is a universe of plenty, and that we share in this plenty, we partake of this plenitude.

Another way to put it would be to say that we're not thinking in terms of a zero-sum game. In a zero-sum game, the result has to be zero. So if somebody's up, somebody else must be down. If there is a winner, there must be a loser. And sometimes in a competition there is only one winner. There is one champion, and everybody else, even if they did very well, even if they exceeded expectations, are second best or even lower down the rankings. 

When we rank people, in whatever form, we increase the sense of exclusivity. There is only one top ranking. There is only one number one, this is a bestseller. This is a successful film. This is a glorious career. Whatever we think about other people or about ourselves, whatever way we use to rank each other in society, all of that has an element of zero sum game.

And there is a place for friendly competition. Sometimes you want to find out who is the best at playing this game. Some sports perhaps wouldn't be so much fun if we didn't compete, if we didn't try to beat the other, if we didn't try to come out on top. The skill we require in competition, the skill of discipline, the skill of focus, the mental games that we may play with our competitor, the emotions involved, the team strategy, the tactics, the element of surprise, I think that we can see the value of all of these things. 

The deep question, though, is: is that what we want life to be? Is that what we want our society to be like? Is that what we want our civilization to be about? About winning by competing, about having zero-sum games where there is one winner and one loser, or one winner, and many losers?

So, while we might see some use for a competitive element to a game, to a sport, I think we should also see the limitations. I think this sense of competitiveness, of winners and losers can be damaging. It can be damaging in education, for example, where we rate some people higher than others. Education has become all about grades and about ranking people, as opposed to seeing what the joy of learning is, how people can develop. That people will develop at different speeds, in different ways. That people have different talents and affinities. Competing for a certain place, or a certain prize, or a certain placement at a prized institution turns, everything into a race. All these are games of scarcity. 

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My sense is that we ought to be careful with these games of scarcity, with these artificial constructs, because they can end up making us all poorer than we need to be. They can increase our misery, they increase our sense of rejection, of pain, of pettiness, and when we're in that pain, we then feel justified in taking it out on the people who have made it. So this breeds resentment. And resentment is a powerful force, because there is a deep sense of pain, which is a strong emotional driver, and at the same time, there's a deep sense of being justified, of having the right to now strike back at this injustice that has been done to you.

Instead of playing these scarcity games, what about playing an abundance game? What about saying that there is enough for everyone? There is more than enough for every single person, now and in the future. We are not competing because there is plenty to go around. You can have a successful life, and that person can have a successful life, and I can have a successful life.

I support your success. I support what you want to achieve in your life. I'm happy when things go well for you. I'm happy when you are fortunate. I'm happy when you are lucky. I'm happy when you are wealthy. I'm happy when you're joyous and me being happy for you increases our happiness.

How do we shift from scarcity to an abundance view?  I think the realization that we are all unique and at the same time we're all the same,  might help. So let me explain what I mean by this. We are all the same as human beings: we all want to be valued. We all want to be seen. We all want to have a sense that we matter. We want to experience joy and happiness. We want to achieve things in life. And at the same time, we are unique individuals: there is nobody like us. The combination of genes that we have, the experiences in life, our personality, what we want out of life, what makes us happy and unhappy, all these things differ widely.

Our universality is that there is no difference in value between human beings, but our uniqueness is that we're all fundamentally a category of one. If we are going to be ranking people, we should rank ourselves against ourselves. In this category of one, in this life that I'm living, in who I was born and how I've lived, and who am I becoming, the only comparison really is to myself.

We have this expression about comparing apples and oranges: they're not the same thing. We are comparing different people with different backgrounds, with different genes, with different aspirations, with different possibilities, with different luck in their lives, very different luck. The idea that we are actually in competition with other people is a rather strange idea: w are comparing apples to oranges - and, I think that thought could be liberating. I am not really in competition with anybody else, because I don't aspire to what they want, I don't have that personality, I'm not living their lives, I don't know what it means to be them. I am not them.

The realization that we don't have to play scarcity games with things that matter to us deeply, the recognition of each other's universality, the recognition that we are all valuable as human beings, that we all deserve to be joyous and happy, and fortunate and successful, and at the same time that we are unique, that we will all have our own way of getting there. I think these insights might be helpful to shift this emotion in us, where we find ourselves genuinely happy about somebody else's success, we find ourselves excited by their achievements. We are happy at their luck, at their fortune.

We realize the world is abundant because we experience the world, our physical world, our mental world, our emotional world, our social world as abundant, because we experience that there is more than we will ever need now and in the future.  

It's easy to be magnanimous when there is an abundance. It's easy to be magnanimous when you realize you're not in competition. And that I think is the whole point. I am not thinking of doing something hard and difficult, for which we must train and practice. If we shift to an abundance mindset, then being generous of spirit is the easiest thing to do.

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So, how can our exploration of generosity of spirit help us with our understanding of more traditional forms of generosity, for example, when we're generous with our means, when we're generous with money? 

Interestingly enough, I think it's pretty much the same thing. I think that what is true of spirit, that what is true of feeling joy for someone is also true of physical means, is also true of objects, is also true of money.

We saw in the episode on learning to become rich, that comparing our wealth to other people's wealth is an endless game. It's an endless game of competition. And that there is a sense that we are truly rich when we feel plenty, when we feel we have more than we need, more than we need now, and more than we'll ever need.

So the feeling of abundance, the mindset of abundance, the realization of the natural abundance of the world, and the abundance that our civilization is creating, is allowing us to make that shift. We can all stop being miserably poor. We could eradicate extreme poverty from the world if we wanted to. It wouldn't be difficult.

Poverty and wealth are not a zero-sum game. The fact that some people become well-off, wealthy, rich, doesn't mean that the rest should fail, that they should be losers, that they should be poor. We can see what a weird obsession it is to rank people in terms of their achievements or in terms of the numbers in their bank accounts.  

Financial generosity: giving money away. It's not just a question of charity, it's not a question that we feel that we are good by helping those who are less fortunate. I don't think that giving money away out of a sense of guilt makes so much sense. We see pictures of people who are miserable, and this shames and guilts into parting with some of our wealth.

But why is that the driver? If I feel that I generate more wealth than I need, if I feel I live in a world of plenty now, if I have no fears for the future, because I don't think that plenitude will be taken away from me, then I can freely give, I can give with a joyous feeling.

And we could of course object that when we talk about money, it's different than talking about feelings. If I feel happy for somebody else's success, that doesn't cost me anything. The law of abundance works pretty well with virtual things. If we share an idea, we both have an idea. If we share an apple, then each of us gets half. So, I share my happiness at your happiness, I share my happiness at your success. But if I share my money, then I give it to you and I take it away from myself.

I think this is a powerful objection, and I think there is a simple sense in which it is true. If I give my money away, then I don't keep it. The whole point is that I give it away, and I no longer have it. But I also think that it need not always be true. And by that I mean that our normal system of economics is based on a zero- sum game. Somebody's gain is my loss and vice versa.

We can imagine, we can conceptualize, we can create systems where we make everybody richer, where the fact that I become more wealthy helps other people's wealth. Money, after all, is a virtual invention. It's not something physical. Even in the physical world, things multiply. If I share the seeds of my idea or the seeds of my plants, both will grow, naturally. Both have this potential to multiply. Sharing a few seeds of my plant is not going to make me poorer. I have enough fruit as it is, but it will generate a lot of fruit for somebody else. 

And just as we can make a shift to a generosity of spirit by making a shift to abundance we might be able to shift our understanding of value and money towards an economics of abundance, where our system of money and wealth will partake much more of this law of abundance: that we multiply by sharing.

This exploration of the economics of abundance is for future walks. For now, I would like to leave you with this mental shift. This mental shift from a world of scarcity, of zero-sum games, of endless competition, of ranking, of winner-takes-all towards a world of abundance where there is more than we would ever need. There is plenty, now and in the future: there is plenty for everyone. 

With that mental shift to a different mindset, an emotional shift, a shift from smallness and pettiness, and anger, and resentment, and jealousy, and envy, towards generosity of spirit, towards magnanimity, towards being genuinely happy when good things happen to people, when good things happen to others. Another person's joy is also my joy. 

I wish you all the joy with exploring this part of your generous spirit. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode of Cornucopia.