Sharing 101

Sharing 101, a photo by Back in the Pack on Flickr.

What are you willing to share, and what are you not?  Are you free with your opinions and equally free with your money?  Are you willing to share food but not your technical knowhow?  Are you keeping it all, or are you giving it all away?

Sharing 101 stems from a paradigm that says there is plenty for everyone.  Sharing stems from a perspective of abundance.  If you're not coming from that place, it's very possible to feel as though you'll come out on the short end of limited resources.  In this mindset you won't feel like you can "afford" to part with any of your whatever.

Beyond the scarcity mindset is another obstacle to Sharing 101 - that of the virtue of possession.  It's the assumption that you have what you have because of something outstanding that you did.  Perhaps you invested time and energy or dollars in it.  Perhaps you see it as the result of the education that you sought to obtain or the risk you were willing to assume in investing in a business venture.  You earned it, so doggone it, you're keeping it.

Do you really own it?  Are you the only person who contributed to the person you have become and the assets that you possess?  Is your success all the result of you, or were there other players who had a stake in the outcome?  Who helped you to get that education?  Who hired you for your first job?  Who taught you how to operate the equipment that enabled you to craft the beautiful dining table?  Who laid the groundwork for your research, or developed the prototype for the prior generation of your product?

Sharing 101 is interpersonal grace.  It is accepting that there is bounty in the world, and knowing that passing some of "your" bounty along will not harm you.  Sharing 101 means that you don't have sole ownership.

What are the thoughts and feelings that cause you to want to hold things and people and knowledge to yourself rather than share them?  What are the assumptions that are preventing you from sharing?  What if those assumptions are wrong?  How might your life - and your view of it - be transformed?