Scarcity, Desire and Relating

I was biking past the LRC house one day and I saw a person that I have a crush on leaving the house. I got very excited about seeing this person – I don't see him very often. As I was preparing to stop and speak with him, I saw that Jean was standing on the porch, and she was talking to him. I experience irritation – now Jean was getting in my way of having a one on one conversation with him! Feelings of scarcity were ironically abundant!

My crush had never displayed much interest in me, and I lived for this brief moments of saying hi, always hoping he'd "notice" me, and now this moment was about to be taken away by the presence of Jean. I felt a frustration, ergh, Jean, why now?? Why? Go away! Go away and let me have what I want! I can't have it if you are here! Just looking at Jean, she seemed nothing more than an object in the way of my desire, completely without interest and depth. Hoping to "wait out" her conversation with him, I stopped to say hi to both of them but it was an unsatisfying and awkward experience and I soon realized, while standing there, that I also felt shame and embarassment. I didn't feel as though I was good enough for my crush to like me. I didn't like myself and I felt like a failure, while also as if I was exerting an immense effort.

In this moment, I was able to realize to myself – what I most want is for my crush to be genuinely interested in connecting with me in an ongoing way, as part of a community. If I was connecting to my crush in that way, it would be a pleasure to include Jean, or at least, a neutral event. Jean wouldn't be taking his attention away from me, she's be a member of our extended relating.This situation wouldn't feel painful, but energizing and warm.

I realized then how much my desire and sense of scarcity was shutting me down to my relationship in that moment with Jean – was making her invisible, or, an impediment, a source of irritation. When I am not in that desire/scarcity mental model then I experience delight, enjoyment, connection to Jean. I also realized it was shutting down my relationship to myself - instead of loving and enjoying and respecting my wants and experiences, experiencing my normal delight in self, I was thinking of myself as deprived and worth depriving, an unsatisfying person that I didn't like - an object in my own way! And not to mention how incredibly non-relating I was at the moment towards my crush, the person I was supposed to be truly wanting in this situation. He was becoming completely lost in the dynamics. So at that point, I was in relationship with no one, not even myself - no wonder it was awkward and unsatisfying!

When I told Jean about this we reflected that many of the coercive decisions that are made in the culture come from this scarcity/desire blindness – when a person becomes so caught up in wanting something and feeling they can't get enough or don't have enough, and yet continue to push for it, they become blind to others, which includes blind to their own impacts.

Although it can be painful to let go of something you want that you feel scarcity and desire around – a sort of withdrawal, an emptiness, a disorientation – it helps to remember what you most want, what grounds you, what you love.