{"id":6984,"date":"2020-02-27T21:55:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T21:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gordfunk.com\/?p=6984"},"modified":"2023-02-27T21:56:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T21:56:12","slug":"lack-abundance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gordfunk.com\/lack-abundance\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack & Abundance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I clearly remember my experience of living in lack. Money meant security. With money in the bank, I could feel relaxed. When some unexpected spending came along, I’d experience a fight reflex – legs tense, adrenaline pounding through my body. The figurative tiger was not outside of me, but inside. When the financial reserves were taxed, it was ME who was at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t want to respond in this way – yet I didn’t know any other way. Everything about certain situations – living in debt, buying something on a credit card, the list of triggers goes on and on – felt so wrong. My response was to try to control the external factors so I wouldn’t have to feel this. As a wage-earner, that meant budgeting and cost-cutting. As an entrepreneur, this meant increasing income. In both cases though, the underlying trigger lay latent. A time-bomb that exploded with depressing regularity in my married life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My response to all this would be to work harder. After all, working hard was something that I was taught to do, and was a part of my core identity. Situations that reinforced this identity were retold. One such story involves the first job I had out of school. I spent two summers working at a poultry processing plant in Steinbach. The place was called Friendly Family Farms, but we used other f-words to describe it at times. I worked in the packing side, so my summers were spent under fluorescent lights at 4 degrees. I worked hard, yes, and did lots of overtime, and was always up for more. However, the mythical story comes once the union negotiated down the part-time salary in favour of perks for full-time staff. I didn’t want to work for $7.50 an hour, so I ended up in the back of a green van heading out west to plant trees. The major difference here was that we were paid per tree<\/em>. First day, I earned less than $3\/hour. And the work was hard – especially at first, with my cut and bruised hands cramping at night as I lay exhausted in my tent. It took 10 days for me to get to a $100 day (working 10-12 hours per day). However, I prevailed, and was the top-earning rookie in our camp that year, and in the top 10 in the company the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the surface, this is just another good ego story. Its also the classic western tale of self-made luck. Hard work meeting good opportunity resulting in a bit of wealth. Internally, this involved a lot of willpower and a constant pushing<\/em>. I drove<\/em> myself to get these sort of results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s a deeper element to this story. My identity said – I am a hard worker. My success comes from my hard work. If belief creates reality, then the only way I could be successful would be through hard work. And so that’s how I saw my life. A succession of situations that could be overcome through hard work.<\/p>\n\n\n