You remember the Jeffersons, don’t you? Ah, the Jeffersons. They moved on up. To the east side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky.

They got their piece of the pie. But what about all of us down here without deluxe apartments in the sky?

Do you think it’s possible for all of us to get a piece of the pie? 

Let me rephrase that.

Do you think it’s possible for all of us to achieve financial security and/or wealth in this economy? Or are some of us destined to be left out? (No deluxe apartment for you!)

One reason I’m asking that questions is because I’ve spent the last few years attempting to climb the corporate ladder and obviously there’s a fair bit of competition in doing that.

After all, one person’s promotion is another person’s….well, non-promotion, right?

I’m also recently married so the concept of financial security and how to achieve it has become very interesting to me (not so much in my bachelor days… my top priority back then was clearing caves in Skyrim).

But of course, I’m not the only one right? Everyone wants to have a phenomenal financial situation, but can we all?

Or is one person’s wealth another person’s poverty? Does a super-sized slice of pie for you mean crumbs for me?

That’s what I’m interested in exploring in this post.

Related Post: What Money Means to You- 7 Clues to Your Money Habits.

Wealth, Wealth, and More Wealth

Clearly, the topic of this post is wealth, but as I’m sure most of you know, there are many different types of wealth. Social, spiritual, psychological, etc.

If we take our question above (“is it possible for all of us to achieve financial wealth?”) and recast it as a question regarding social wealth then it becomes much easier to answer.

Yes! It’s possible for all of us to achieve relationship wealth. Why? Because it has to do with ourselves and the relationships we cultivate with others.

We don’t really have to compete with others for resources in order to build relationships. After all, just because Billy is my buddy doesn’t mean he can’t be your buddy too.

It’s not a zero-sum game.

Looking at it that way and considering just how many people there are in the world we can see that there’s (for all intents and purposes) an infinite amount of social wealth that each of us has access to.

That train of thought seems fine for social wealth, but it breaks down when we consider financial wealth.

We both can be friends with Billy at the same time but we both can’t have and use the same dollar at the same time (fractional reserve banking not considered).

So, some types of wealth appear to be infinitely available to all of us. However, one obstacle that may prevent us all being able to accumulate financial wealth appears to be scarcity.

Related Post: Tips for Developing a Wealthy Mindset.

Scarce or Abundant?

When I started researching this question one thing that I quickly learned is that there are two mindsets.

A scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset.

There have been many books and articles written that discuss the scarcity and abundant mindsets. And honestly, I wasn’t aware of many of them until I started doing some research for this post.

Basically, the scarcity mindset refers to the belief that there are limited resources and that life is a zero-sum game. I win, you lose.

The abundance mindset refers to the “concept in which a person believes there are enough resources and successes to share with others.” (That comes straight from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”).

But the thing is…for the purposes of this post, I’m not really interested in exploring the benefits of believing that resources are abundant. I’m more interested in finding out if resources (particularly financial resource) are actually abundant.

Are resources really scarce as my economics professor convinced me all those years ago? Or are there abundant resources?

Well, there’s a finite amount of money circulating in the economy. And the fact that it’s finite means (by definition) that it’s scarce.

But wait! Although the money supply is scarce the number of transactions that each dollar can be used in is unlimited. So the resource is finite but its utility is infinite.

Related Post: 20 Ways to Stop Spending Money  You Don’t Have.

Abundant…but who cares?

While the utility of money is abundant, most people aren’t really interested in the money.

You don’t want to have a pile of money on your bed so you can spend the rest of your life staring at it lovingly, do you?

No, you’re most likely interested in the things you can buy with the money.

The idea of financial wealth isn’t about the money in and of itself, it’s more about having access to those things which we find valuable.

This raises the question: Are the things we find valuable scarce?

Well, many of the abundance mindset proponents will tell us “no” they’re not scarce. My problem with this response, however, is that things can obviously be scarce can’t they?

For example, right before Hurricane Irma made landfall here in Florida people were buying boatloads of water. And you know what happened after a few hours?

Exactly right…there was no more water left for the rest of us.

Talk about scarcity.

It’s hard to get on board with the abundance mindset when scarcity regularly happens, or so I thought.

But if you remember from economics class, scarcity is a short term issue. Likewise, Irma was a local issue and water was scarce only in the short-term.

Every scenario I could subsequently think of in which scarcity existed was a short-term scenario. (This week, this month, this year). But long-term situations always allowed for abundance. (If you have an example of long term scarcity, please let me know in the comments.)

Related  Post: 20 Ways to Stop Spending Money You Don’t Have. 

Ok…but I still don’t have my promotion

The idea that money and materials are abundant appears plausible, but there is one more thing to consider. Just because money and water are abundant doesn’t necessarily mean that job promotions are abundant.

After all, everyone can’t be a vice president in the same company, right?

Well, again, in the short term this can be scarce, but in the long term promotions can (I’m not saying they will be, but that they can) be abundant.

Imagine this, your rival gets the promotion you were gunning for. You’re of course disappointed, but he or she turned out to be really good at their job.

They’re able to increase sales and bring in more clients, which, ultimately leads to growth in the business. 

After a few months or years of your rival being in their new position, the business has actually grown so that there’s room for another person to be promoted.

The point of this short example was to show that even promotions are abundant in the long term and the key to this abundance is human creativity and ingenuity. 

Related Post: How to Buy Happiness And Make it Last.

Final Thoughts

The purpose of this post was to explore the abundance or scarcity of wealth. While scarcity is all around us, it’s a short-term phenomenon. In the long-term human creativity, ingenuity and growth are the true keys to the abundance that is all around us.

Cheers!