There is plenty to be learned in seasons of scarcity. While scarce seasons lack resources, there is no shortage of opportunities. There is sufficiency found within the insufficiency. It just requires the right perspective.
Seasons of Scarcity
I was walking through the living room on Thanksgiving morning when I saw the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on television. My mind traveled back in time to a place where Ashtyn and Grant were little. They loved watching the parade.
A few years ago, I revealed a secret that I had been keeping from them. As a young family, money was scarce. Cutting cable was one of the easiest ways to save money, so we went without it during that season of life. So, each Thanksgiving, I would pull up YouTube and put on the parade from last year! At their age, they never knew the difference! Don’t judge…
I often laugh when I hear a young couple say, “We are waiting to have enough money to have kids.” Any experienced parent knows that this is not achievable.
As one of those “experienced” parents who has been through seasons of providing basic necessities, funding travel sports, and now supporting two broke teen drivers with car insurance, I can guarantee young couples that they will NEVER in fact have kids if they wait until having enough money!
That Thanksgiving trip down memory lane made me think about the word scarcity. It can seem negative, restrictive, and constraining, but there is so much value that can be found in seasons of scarcity. Lessons that can carry us through a lifetime of leading and learning.
Here are just a few that come to mind for me:
Creativity
The solution was certainly creative if you can get past the fact that I was lying to my kids! In my defense, I never told them then that it wasn’t the most current version! We had limited resources at the time. It was a creative option to create experiences for the kids.
When available resources are abundant, I believe creativity can wean. As organizations grow in scale, creativity can scale back.
Most would say that creativity is found outside of the box, there is truth to that. But creativity can also be generated when we are constrained by the boundaries of the box, seasons when we are required to uniquely utilize the limited resources available to us.
Simplicity
The holidays can be overshadowed by complexity. Complexity makes special scarce. Be here, go there, and don’t forget about this. Cooking, cleaning, and to-do lists can take the special out of the holidays.
The simplicity of slowing down and watching a parade is what puts the special back in the holidays. Watching children mesmerized by sixty-foot-tall replicas of their favorite cartoon characters is beautifully…simplistic.
Complexity is what human beings drive towards. It’s not always our intention, but it is the direction we drive towards most. Minimal maximizes our productivity. Less is sometimes more. When all else fails in a complicated world, simplify.
Prioritize
There is something about a child at their dependent phase of life that can prioritize things for a parent. As they age, those moments become more scarce. It becomes harder to find the opportunities to prioritize these “parade” moments.
In this season of life, my kids function fairly independently (except financially). They get themselves to and from practices, can cook their own meals, and figure out their own sources of entertainment.
When they were dependent, it was easier to prioritize. We had to be there. They absolutely needed us for EVERYTHING. Jumping in my lap to watch a parade, prioritized everything for me.
Seasons of scarcity can prioritize what is most precious in our worlds. I once read a book by Greg McKeown called Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of Less. In the book, he explained that the word priority was never meant to be plural. We as humans have managed to evolve the word to create more room for priorities through the plural form of it.
Scarce times provide a perfect opportunity to prioritize. When we have limited choice in what to prioritize, scarcity narrows it down for us. It just sits down, right in our lap.
Conclusion
My earliest memories as a child start at an apartment we lived at in Marietta, Georgia. Even as a young child, I remember how basic the place was. It wasn’t big and it didn’t come with all the bells and whistles. Our “backyard” was shared with other apartment tenants.
To this day, I still hear my parents talk about the days when they and their friends would all pitch in food items to grill out in that space. It was scarce financial times for them, but I still can detect genuine joy when they talk about those memories. It created lifelong friendships for them in the process.
As with any parent, I desire for my kids to have a better life than me. At times, I worry if that same pursuit reduces their opportunity to experience seasons of scarcity.
As a leader, I desire to provide all the resources necessary for those I am entrusted to lead to be successful. At times, I also worry that same pursuit reduces their opportunity to experience seasons of scarcity.
My own seasons of scarcity have taught me creativity, simplicity, and prioritization. Whether it’s scarce finances, resources, or time; those we lead and love will have a front row seat to how we operated in our seasons of scarcity. They will notice every struggle, every success, and every significant contribution of our time, talents, and treasures in the process. Most of all, they will see us push through those circumstances.
There is much to be learned in seasons of scarcity.
