The Problem with Abundance – a Solution?

Is gratitude still possible when we are drowning in abundance?

Can we have too much of anything or everything – are we being suffocated by stuff we never asked for in the first place?

I’m indebted to the Andrew Keen Podcast – which featured an interview with Brink Lindsey talking about his new book The Permanent Problem – for setting my mind thinking.

The famous economist, Maynard Keynes, warned us of the problems of prosperity back in the 1930’s – while still in the depths of the Great Depression – a time when Wattles’ book, The Science of Getting Rich, had a huge underground influence on righting the economy and bringing prosperity to those who followed his teachings.

What do we do when we don’t have to struggle anymore? How do we lead meaningful lives and feel grateful when we are drowning in stuff we never really wanted?

It’s a first world problem. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious or wounding problem. The pain is felt inside – in the heart – in the soul. A slow weakening of our resolve and If we feel we haven’t earned it, our lives feel meaningless.

The problem accelerated with Covid.

Stuck at home with nothing to do and extra cash to spend, people turned to Amazon and had stuff delivered.

Without spending the hard cash we had earned, we were divorced from the concepts of value and need.

Point, click, deliver next day. Effortless consumerism. I wonder how much of the stuff bought during covid now lies rotting in waste sites.

Having moved recently, I’ve been amazed at how little value is placed on old stuff. We couldn’t give our sofas away, either through indifference, or a preference for new stuff on credit or because charities are bound by regulation and require the correct labels before they can accept anything.

When we set up home we were grateful for anything we were given. China, tools, carpets, beds, you name it. We couldn’t afford stuff. We had fun at auctions, repurposing other people’s stuff.

Today, new home owners can’t afford to buy stuff either, but they have ridiculously easy credit thrust at them and are subject to an advertising industry that makes them feel lesser people for not having new.

Some of the tools I have in my garage are 100 years old. They belonged to my Great Uncle Percy, a bit of a DIYer in his time, I never met him, but I think about him every time I pick up the tools I inherited from him.

I use my dad’s hammer. He was so pleased the day he bought it. I can still hear him say with pride, “That’s a hickory handle.”

I just inherited my late father-in-law’s woodworking bench and loads of screws and bits and bobs – all filed away in his funny and idiosyncratic ways. They make me smile and think of him as I search the little drawers for the right screw or nut or bolt.

And those can be moments of gratitude. Gratitude for his life, the lessons I learned from him, for his daughter whom I married, for his funny, idiosyncratic ways – some of which I’ve adopted into my own way of thinking and working.

There was a time when a large percentage of the population said morning and evening prayers. Really, they were formal moments of gratitude.

There was a time when people said Grace before a meal. Grace is really a formal moment of gratitude.

Those moments of gratitude add up to the world that evolved – their future – that we now inhabit.

We seem to have no time for those moments anymore. The digital world screams at us for our attention – the noise is deafening. It disorientates us. It says, “don’t look there, look here where we can control what you choose to think.

We are addicted to scrolling and clicking. There is no time left for gratitude – a new digital link is always demanding our attention.

So what can we do?

Well, that’s what this site, My YouTube Channel and my book, The Certain Way, are about. I’m trying to figure it out and sharing my thoughts along the way.

If you feel awkward talking about prayer or grace – try a formal moment of gratitude. Not while you are brushing your teeth or doing something else. Forget about productivity systems. Gratitude is the most important thing you can work on to change the course of your life. Take time for it and it only – do not be distracted.

Gratitude is like gravity. It’s a force that appears weak, but it has extraordinary power that extends through the universe, entangling particles into a new order.

Certainty in your aims, needs, wants and wishes, create a movement towards a new reality that we call the future. With gratitude and certainty, the thought becomes the future that aligns with you and your purpose.

So you could say, that those moments of gratitude are the most important moments of your day.

In a world of noise how do you find a quiet time or place for a moment of gratitude.

You start by making the choice.

You could slow down your thinking and find a moment to read my book, The Certain Way It’s based on Wallace Wattles famous book, which I’ve updated it for the 21^st century. Wattles helped me understand the world and my place in it and I hope it can do the same for others.

The Certain Way: A Tool for the 21st Century

We live in a world of “Point, Click, Deliver”. Everything is available, yet many of us feel a “wounding” sense of meaninglessness because we have been divorced from the concepts of value and earned reward.

In the 1900s, Wallace Wattles wrote a masterpiece called The Science of Getting Rich. It wasn’t just about money – it was about a specific mental and physical approach to creation. I have rewritten this classic for our modern age of digital noise and unasked-for abundance.

This book is your “Hickory Handled Hammer”.

• Move from Competition to Creation: Stop fighting for what is already made and learn to manifest from the “formless substance” of your own ideas.
• Reconnect Effort and Reward: Break the cycle of “effortless consumerism” that leads to the nervous breakdown Keynes predicted.
• The Science of Action: Learn about the “Certain Way” to think and act so that your environment begins to reshape itself around your vision.

Why this book? Why now?

Abundance has accelerated, but our happiness hasn’t. The Certain Way provides the structural foundation for a life of purpose. It is the manual for those who want to stop being “users” of the world and start being “makers” within it.