Facing the Uncomfortable

This post is extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable for me to write, and therefore I’ve written it and deleted it over and over. In fact, writing Disrupting the Distractions was an attempt to get rid of the feeling I needed to write this post. But it keeps coming back up, so I take that as a sign that it needs to be shared. So here goes.

Today I was reviewing LinkedIn and came across this post by Bonnie Dilbur who’s a recruiter at Zapier. This post, in a nutshell, points out that trickle down economics don’t work and that things need to change. The sentiment aligns heavily with a value of mine that when someone is blessed to have more than enough to survive and enjoy life, they need to share that wealth so that everyone has a chance at having enough. And as this post points out, there are certain people who have a high responsibility to do so (namely the ultra-rich). If you’re interested in hearing more on this topic, this Daily Show interview and Matthew Desmond’s body of work provide some mind-blowing information around this.

But the question I’ve had to ask myself recently is, how much is “enough?” It’s obvious when someone has millions or billions that they have more than enough. But what about people who aren’t in the 1%? Is there a number where they have more than “enough?” Do they have a responsibility in this, or is it only the millionaires and billionaires?

I remember when a manager of mine told me the rich need to be taxed more! But she quickly added after that “rich” meant someone making over $500,000 a year. Which stunned me because I wasn’t even making one fifth that amount and I was able to make things work living by myself in the San Francisco Bay Area. I imagined that if I made even double of what I was making, sure I could save and buy more for myself, but I would also give a lot of that away.

Well, I discovered how complicated that belief actually was a couple of weeks ago. I got a full time job offer for the first time in four years and it was going to pay me a salary that gave me breathing space to enjoy life and feel secure, and still left me with about $400 a month to do with as I wanted. It isn’t that much when compared to what someone in the 1% could give, but it’s enough to make a pretty big difference to someone. Maybe even a couple of people. And it’s more than I’ve ever had the chance to share.

So I started to do research on where this money could go, and part of me rebelled. Hard.

It said: This is mine. I earned this and I deserve to keep it for myself. I can give a little, but the rest is for me. Even if that money sits in a bank account for the rest of my life doing nothing but collecting interest.

If you’re grossed out by that line of thinking, well, so am I! I was like, where the hell did this mindset come from and how do I get rid of it as fast as possible?

Unfortunately, it’s not that hard to figure out. It came from being raised in a highly capitalist and colonialist society. And this, to me, is one of the root causes of why our country stays stuck. Because this thinking is hardwired into our brains, whether we acknowledge it or not, and if we’re fortunate enough to get to this place of abundance, it’s easy to say, “Sure! This amount of money is technically ‘enough.’ But I could also use a little bit more, and really it’s THAT person’s job to fix this mess because they have so much more than I do.”

To be clear, I one hundred percent believe that the ultra-rich hoarding their wealth is a key part, if not the key part, of the problem here. AND many or even most of us have internal work to do because this dynamic plays out not just on the macro level of billionaires vs the impoverished, but also on the micro level in terms of what and how much we buy, how much we believe certain jobs deserve to be paid, how much we save or buy for ourselves because we’re constantly forced into scarcity mindset, how we do or don’t work together as a community, etc.

It’s highly uncomfortable work, though, because it requires us to not only question what we’ve absorbed for decades, but also to recognize that there are parts of us that believe or do things that aren’t very pretty to look at because they go against our values and/or hurt others. Sometimes they even hurt ourselves.

All of us have these parts of us. Maybe this specific example doesn’t resonate, but they almost definitely exist in other forms because that’s just part of being human. Once we see these parts of us, the only way to change them is to recognize and engage with them rather than push them down and pretend they don’t exist. And it’s really not fun to do that for a variety of reasons. However, it needs to be done if we want to change ourselves and the world around us.

In my case, I don’t feel like I can reasonably expect anyone else to let go of their capitalistic indoctrination if I’m unwilling to do that work myself. So, I invited this rebellious part of myself to say whatever was on its mind and I listened to it.

That might seem like the opposite of what I should be doing. Why on earth would I listen to part of myself that I feel is misguided? Well, because this part of myself is gripping onto this belief for a reason, and the reason is almost always because it believes this is what needs to happen to keep me safe. Shutting it down or telling it that it’s wrong simply tells that part of me that I’m going to act in an unsafe way and it just gets louder and more aggressive in its attempt to control.

But when I have a conversation, suddenly that part of me feels heard. It feels like I’m taking my safety seriously, and it starts to open up to the idea that we’re on the same side. We just have different approaches to safety. Eventually — and it might take multiple conversations to get here — it starts to become willing to try something different.

When I did this, what I heard was that there was a belief that owning more material items somehow protected me against harm and danger. Therefore, if I had extra money it should be used to buy more so I’m more protected.

Given the state of the United States right now, with trade wars and layoffs and social programs being cut, this actually isn’t a terribly surprising fear. Especially when combined with the fact that I’ve had periods of financial instability in my life and so I have a heightened sense of scarcity.

Knowing this allows me to acknowledge that the fear is real AND practice the idea that I’m safe right now even if I’m giving a significant chunk of money away instead of buying more things with it. Maybe my situation will change, maybe I’ll have to reevaluate everything all over again, AND since that isn’t the case right now, the best preventative measure is to help build a world where no one has to worry about not having enough.

Is that the end of it? No. This will undoubtedly come up again for me. These deeply embedded wounds tend to be multi-layered. But the more I practice this, the scared parts of me can relax so I can take the action that kicked up this internal angst in the first place. And then I not only align my actions with my values and make the world a better place, I do so from a place of gratitude and eagerness to help.