Contrived to feel deprived

Deprivation, at least in this country o' plenty, is mostly a state of mind. Until recently we thought tent cities were for other people far away, and that banks don't fail - except in a Steinbeck novel or some old WPA photojournalist's work. We are ridiculously rich and blessed to be living in this time, even if these next few years have nothing but bad news. It's the social worker in me, but I am glad there is some sort of safety net - even if it is a scant 6 inches above the floor. Still, we are confusing and end of abundance with desperate deprivation.

There are some mindgames afoot here. I'll call on an example from my long but not quite glorious history of dieting.

Flush with good intentions, you develop a very strict diet plan for yourself and proceed to be vigilant - nothing that isn't low calorie or healthy will darken your pantry shelves. Remove the temptation so it's easier to stick to your resolutions, right? But if you persist in this semi-deprived state, you will either cheat on the diet (and by cheat I mean binge) or end it quicker. The fact of knowing that - should you choose to - you could find treat foods to indulge in makes it less likely that you will do so. Choosing to be disciplined is an affirming experience; being disciplined by circumstances or others makes us (me) cranky and resentful. i.e. Bob raises an eyebrow at my admittedly poor snack choice... and I'm immediately thinking defensively which then over-endorses my reasons for being undisciplined in the first place - shame is not a helpful learning tool. How do I act out those negative feelings? Usually by eating more. So there.
That'll fix 'em.

Sigh.

My point is that I had decided to go shopping this morning - to check out the Salvation Army to see what was there - knowing full well the likelihood I'd walk out without purchasing stuff we didn't actually need was quite high. I have done it before, but... I had contrived this visit as a motivator to complete some onerous paperwork for my private practice. (I've succumbed to insurance, and am going over to the dark side.) After dropping off my all-important-envelope at the post office, I volunteered for a bit with X's preschool class. When I was leaving, I noted I had a full 2 hrs. to myself before I needed to pick up L early for Spring Break. That seemed like too much time and temptation. I did the responsible thing and went grocery shopping. It didn't start out as an "instead" - but I went to a different store than usual, with only a mental list, and got caught up in coupon mania. Poof - there went an hour. And now an hour didn't seem like enough time to head over to do some real shopping....

Strangely enough, I'm okay with that. It's not like I'm deprived. I could have gone shopping. I chose not to. We have enough. In fact, it's an embarrassing abundance, from the global perspective. Just working on the grateful heart part.