In 12-step programs, a running joke says that the mantra of the addict is "more." One more drink, one more drug, one more scoop of ice cream, one more game of Angry Birds. While that's true for addicts it's also true that "more" is the mantra of our greater culture.
I attended a workshop on philanthropy taught by Lynn Twist a few weeks ago. She talked about the cultural beliefs that stop us from being generous and I started to think about the lies we tell ourselves to support those beliefs.
The biggest lie is about scarcity — that constant sense that there is just not enough. Many of us begin our day with the thought, "I didn't get enough sleep," which quickly becomes "I don't have enough clothes, and not enough time and not enough help."
It's a continuous chant: "I don't have enough. ... I don't have enough. ..."
From there, it's very easy to believe, "There is just not enough of me." And then, tragically, we begin to sense a deeper, shameful belief: "I am not enough."
To consciously admit, "I am not enough" is so awful that we have to distract ourselves, and what is a better distraction than the faulty solution that: "If I don't have enough then I'll have to get more."
That insidious train of thought then leads us to seeing the world as "us and them," because if I don't have enough it must be because someone else has more.
It's a frightening trajectory. When I start to believe there is not enough my next thought is, "I have to protect mine." That, of course, leads us to tighten our grip on what we have.
Think about one of the earliest games we teach children: musical chairs. It's pure cultural indoctrination. There are not enough, so you have to push and shove, and to guard your chair you must run in a tight little circle. Most reality TV shows are grown-up versions of musical chairs; do anything to anyone to keep yours and to get some of theirs.
Money is our preferred symbol and our shorthand to express this "enoughness" and our "more."
We are slow learners. Money can't buy happiness: that's the absolute conclusion of research on happiness over the past 30 years. What is it we really want? In survey after survey the list remains pretty much the same: we want affiliation, love, friendship, autonomy and leisure.
Only tiny daily positive events have an impact on long-term happiness. That's why all the advice about making gratitude lists and counting your blessings is psychologically sound.
But we resist. We want the car, the clothes, the house, the toys. But they never satisfy. I'm on no moral hilltop. My closet, like my marital history, is a triumph of hope over experience. Every scarf I buy wants one of its own, and every pair of shoes wants to bring home a friend. As one wise person said, you can never get enough of what you don't really want.
But we also hear, "Maybe money can't make you happy, but it can make you secure." That's a myth too; security is an inside job. Besides if we really wanted security wouldn't we all be saving like mad? That's not happening.
The American Economic Association says that the U.S. personal savings rate is a nice round number — it's a zero. In the aggregate, Americans spend every dollar we bring home.
So we keep spending, but when we notice that others have more it scares us, so we try harder, and we buy more but we feel less and less satisfied.
How many of us are trying, in the present, to fill a hole that exists in the past? That terrifying, "I'm not enough" is the center of our cultural addiction. Maybe the economic recovery we most need is also an inside job.
Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. Her email address is DianeOCameron@gmail.com.