The Abundance Post

My sweetie, SO, whatever you would like to call him, doesn't believe in "The Secret" or much of the hullabaloo about what used to be called creative visualization. However he does believe in some personal mythology culled from ideas like it.  I admit that I'm arrogant and don't always listen to him.

One day he came home and we talked about buying a painting or two by an artist I had been following for ages. I had just been laid off and money should have been tight -- although we always seem to have extra now -- and I told him I felt odd buying an expensive painting when I just lost my job.


He said, "I read something the other day, about acting from a place of abundance. That if you act like you will always have an abundance of money, there will be."


I told him that sounded dorky, but he explained how it's a philosophy and that if you believe you will make more money, buying something expensive isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.


Someone had already pounced on my first choice, "Wish for the New Year," so I bought two smaller paintings and felt silly. My wholesome, San Joaquin Valley upbringing made me nervous about spending thousands of dollars on art, and I told myself that I was not just buying the paintings, but funding an artist. Without people like me, artists couldn't exist. Without people like me, paying $30 for a book, writers couldn't exist. Every dollar I spent supported the artistic community.


We were just readying for a flight to Ireland, not so much thinking from a place of abundance but already-paid, nonrefundable tickets, when the gallery owner e-mailed me and asked if I still wanted "Wish for the New Year."  The buyer, a NYC day trader, backed out after being laid off from his job.


I wrote: "I was laid off in July, too, but as my husband says, 'Think from a perspective of abundance.' Just think of all the luck it will bring into our eccentric home!'"


I received a contract position a few weeks later and the pay has been unexpectedly good. I don't seem scared or desperate about money. I am blessed.


The painting hangs prominently on my wall. My husband stares at it sometimes as if he wants to see the painting materialize into a retirement plan. I enjoy it for what it is, a painting of a defiant girl suspended in mid-air, determinedly hanging onto to a rope, swing-chiming so her desire can be heard by the gods.