During my second year of college (c. 1988) I deliberately did a very unkind thing to a stranger. One day as I was jogging I found a beautiful Banana Republic floral silk scarf on the sidewalk. Naturally, I picked it up and took it home delighting in my rare luck. A couple of days later I was jogging near the same location in front of a college dormitory and a girl stopped me. She said her friends had seen me find her scarf while I was running. She explained to me that her grandmother had just given her that scarf as a gift and asked if I would please, please, please bring it to the dormitory office and leave it for her.
I didn’t. On purpose.
(This is not the scarf, but it was lovely like this.)
While I am ashamed to tell this story, I understand where I was in my life in 1988. It was an unhappy time for me. I was struggling. I didn’t want the privilege of being in college because I couldn’t even begin to think about what I wanted to study or pursue until I overcame my eating disorder which was completely dominating & destroying my life. Additionally I was in a very toxic relationship in which I felt utterly trapped. In many ways I felt powerless over my circumstances. I did not have the tools then to see how I could free myself from my despair and create a better life for myself. I was an unhappy and bitter person.
I wanted to be gifted a beautiful scarf. I wanted a grandmother who cared that much about me. I wanted to be a happy college girl with friends. I wanted the confidence to pursue my needs and wants.
So I kept her scarf, feeling for a moment that I had these things and she didn’t. It gave me a momentary sense of power.
Which faded.
Of course. It always does.
I kept that scarf for years out of guilt. It stayed in my drawer because I could never bring myself to wear or enjoy it. It gave me too much guilt and shame to even see it. I probably kept it the better part of 10 years, through approximately 5 relocations, before I was able to barely forgive myself enough for what I had done and to let it go to a thrift shop. If I could only have found that girl ten years later and given her back her scarf I would have done it in a heartbeat.
There are two kinds of people in the world. I know that sounds trite and it’s often not so simple to divide up people in binary ways, however this one seems to hold mostly true. We all experience pain. We all suffer. It’s part of life. There are people in this world who say “I suffer, and I want you to suffer too because it’s not fair that I suffer alone. It’s not fair that you are happy and I am not.” And then there are people who say “I suffer and I never want anyone else to feel the pain I feel.” We can each be both of these people in different stages of life or in different situations or with different people, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in the middle or outside these mindsets.
I definitely was suffering in 1988. I despised my life and myself. I chose to pass on that pain to the scarf girl. I still feel horrible about it. Today I would have delighted in facilitating the reunion of the girl and her beautiful scarf. It is said that “hurt people hurt people” and I was definitely a hurting person who aimed to hurt.
What is it in people that makes them want to share their pain or to protect others from their pain? I’ve been trying to figure this out and what I have concluded is that some of us believe that happiness is a zero-sum game, that there’s only so much happiness to go around and if you have some it means that I have less. Others of us believe that there is infinite happiness available to us all and that my happiness does not take away from your happiness or vice versa.
Young minds and hearts, like mine in 1988 when I was 18 years old, are often mired in zero-sum game thinking. It’s lower level, physical plane, immature thinking. Some people never mature out of this disposition through adulthood. We believe that there’s only so much to go around and we have to fight for our fair share. If someone is without, well that’s just too bad. Better them than me.
I don’t know when my mindset changed nor do I know how it changed. I’m not sure if it was by books or people but was probably both. My awareness was expanded and I began to practice abundance thinking along with gratitude. Being thankful for my life in big and small ways helped me to remember all that I have, all that I am, all I get to do, and all my infinite possibilities. And I recognized that this is available to others too if they want it. We don’t have to fight for happiness. We can all have it and we can share it without our bounty being reduced.
I wish in 1988 that I would have known that the scarf girl’s happiness didn’t take away from my potential happiness. In fact it would have been amazing that if I had done the right thing in returning her scarf (which I mentally knew was the right thing to do) then I just may have experienced some infectious joy by witnessing her delight and gratitude. I cheated us both out of expanding our happiness. I will forever be sorry for my choice.
Recently I watched the new Tony Robbins documentary and deep within the film he talks about these two types of people. I think flipping the mindset from scarcity to abundance is a critical step in spiritual development and growth. When we can access spiritual, energetic abundance and bring it down into this physical plane by living from the heart, we are able to fully live as spiritual human beings who can share love, joy, and happiness without feeling a sense of subtraction or lack. It may be a film you would enjoy watching too. I highly recommend it.
Additional Resources
• Why You Need to Know About Your Chakras
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Carla, we’ve all had our times… one of mine:
I was about 5 and arguing with the kid next door. I have no idea why we were fighting. I just remember saying “well at least my mother didn’t die”. His Mom had died the week before. I still remember how he stopped dead still like I’d hit him with a hammer. A wail came out of his mouth that sound like the deepest despair as he fell like a sack of potatoes crying to the ground. His grandmother who was visiting to help the family came out of the house and brought him inside, giving me the look I deserved. I wish I could take those words back, I was only five, but really regret it to this day. Thanks for sharing your story, it makes us all feel more human and maybe able to take a step back and forgive ourselves for those times we fell short of what we want to be. This might be appropriate: Mr. King ended his Hawaii speech by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it’s an apt description of the idea of America today: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”
Oh that’s tough Jim. What a deep lesson to learn at the tender age of only five. Love the quote. Thank you for taking the time to read and share your story!
That is a wonderful story! We are all in very different places with different mindsets at various times in our lives. Abundance whether it be happiness, love or basic needs is a life lesson that helps us be more generous with our fellow life travelers. Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you Lynne for taking the time to read & comment! xo