Sharing feels good. Really good.
So why do we resist it so much? Especially when we have so much.
I get that conserving energy is a biological motivation deeply enbedded in our DNA. Our ancestors didn’t know when they would eat next, or find water, or need shelter, so hoarding resources was critical to their survival.
And yet they were also social animals. They lived in family groups and in communities. Working with other people was critical to their survival.
We are still social animals. We still live in communities, and I know not only that I derive most of my own satisfaction and pleasure from interacting with other people but also that I could not survive without a community to support me. I am a hobbyist potter who knows zero about acquiring food on my own, zero about building even modestly effective shelter, zero about machines or carpentry or any other necessary skill for truly independent off-the-grid living.
But do we still need to hoard resources?
Because we seem to believe we do. People in my broader family, good friends and neighbors, other people I know and respect seem to want to acquire and retain more than what it appears to me that they need. I don’t judge them for their decisions – I don’t know the details of their circumstances, and I believe strongly in self-determination – but I wonder if they’re not making decisions based on fear rather than a realistic reading of their circumstances.
I retired last year from my corporate career. I was very worried about whether or not I had enough money to transition to my new career, which is still undetermined 15 months later. I did. It seems we prepare for the worst – how else to ensure that we’ll make it through. But the worst only happens to a small fraction of us, so the rest of us have over-prepared. And there’s a cost to each of us for that and to our community at large. Because in acquiring and keeping something we don’t really need, we deprive someone else of its use, someone who might need it more than we do.
My experience is that our community helps those who draw the short straws, who see disaster upend their lives. If we trusted that we wouldn’t be left out in the cold, that our families would have something to eat, that our basic needs would be met while we rebuilt our lives, then I wonder if we could curtail some of the selfishness we see around us, the selfishness that inhibits us, that undermines community and wastes resources that could be better used by someone who needs them more.