It Takes a While to Get Used to Abundance

When a friend told me once her dog didn’t eat enough, I almost couldn’t believe it. At that time our dog would never pass a chance to eat. She swallowed her meals so fast that we had to buy a special slow feeder. She would scavenge from the trash bins on our daily walk in search for delicacies like damp and moldy bread. We couldn’t leave her near the kitchen even for a single minute, or she would steal everything, including raw cucumbers, a whole pack of butter, or two pounds of cheesecake at once.

Before we found her, our dog lived with a homeless man. Her job was scaring off anyone who got too close and finding food for herself. Whenever she’s feeling insecure, her first instinct is still to scare everyone off. Until very recently she also either ate everything she could find right on the spot, or hid it in different corners of our house. She likely didn’t believe there would still be food for her the next day.

Lorna was 5 years old when we adopted her. It took her another half of that to trust that she won’t starve to death. For 2.5 years she got regular meals at the same time of every day and training snacks on every walk together, and yet it was not enough for her to let her guard down. I’m so proud of her she finally learned to trust us now.

Why wouldn’t my dog feel secure with us faster? Couldn’t she see there was food in her bowl every day? This is a common pattern - I’ve met developers who made a lot of money and still spent it like college students. When my friend's grandma got out of Auschwitz, she carried bread in her pockets at all times until the day she died.

I noticed something similar in my own reaction when my daughter cried that she wants to stay home with me this morning. “Come on” - I thought - “I can’t let you skip daycare today when there are so many things I have to do”. The truth is, nothing bad would happen if I didn’t do any of these things today or even tomorrow. And none of them could possibly be more important than being there for my kid when she needs me.

Why wouldn’t I acknowledge this faster? A part of me still feels like I need to take every chance I have to do focused work because my kid might get sick at any time. Letting her stay at home when she’s healthy is both disruptive to my plans and a dangerous precedent. What if she wants to also skip daycare tomorrow? And the day after that? Will I ever be able to catch up with everything?

For many years my work always expanded to take as much time as it could. Now that I’m in charge of my own schedule and get to decide what I want to accomplish on any given day, I still feel like I’m always falling behind. I probably have more free time than any single mom I know, and yet I don’t act like it. If I can’t spend a whole day with my daughter when she really needs me, what am I even doing with my time?

Getting used to abundance takes a while, whether that’s abundance of food, money, social occasions, or time. The old patterns will still resurface especially under stress, or when I’m tired and feel like my brainpower will never return. All I can do is remind myself that my survival isn’t threatened. I don’t have to live like this. And then possibly take a day off just to play with my kid.