On Poverty Mindset

It happened again today — that old instinct, quiet and stubborn, surfacing over Costco groceries.

I was loading things into the cart, mostly stuff I'd eat, and I noticed this low-level unease about spending the money, the kind that doesn't announce itself as irrational but just settles in and colors everything. And then Jordan wandered off to the food court to get himself a dessert instead of staying to help pay — and even though I knew, consciously and immediately, that most of what was in that cart was mine anyway, and even though I know how much more financially secure he is than I am right now (he'd apparently had a very good day trading — let's just say a meaningful win), some part of me was already doing the math in the most ungenerous way possible. Almost resentful. Almost keeping score.

I could see it happening in real time and still couldn't quite turn it off.

The thing is, I know what this is. I've read enough and thought enough about it to recognize the pattern: poverty mindset. A 0-0 framework — every dollar out is a loss, every unmatched contribution is an imbalance to correct, every moment of abundance feels subtly suspect, like it could be taken back. The wiring is prehistoric, literally. In a hunter-gatherer world, that kind of vigilance around fairness and resource-sharing made sense — it maintained equity in groups where the margins were real and survival was collective. The instinct served a purpose once.

But I live in the land of plenty. And more to the point, I live alongside someone who has spent months being genuinely generous with me in ways that go well beyond grocery runs. Taking on the groceries isn't a sacrifice — it's the least I can do, and I actually want to do it. The resentment that flickered today wasn't real information about my situation. It was just old wiring firing in a context it was never built for.

I think some of it came from my parents, and from their parents before that — people who grew up in circumstances where scarcity was literal, where the anger around money was a survival response passed down through the family like a language nobody chose to learn but everyone absorbed. I don't blame them for it. But I also don't need to carry it forward into a life that looks nothing like the one those instincts were shaped by.

I want to live in an abundance mindset — not as a mantra or a pose, but as an actual orientation. To live big and live well and not spend emotional energy keeping score over grocery change. That's not the person I want to be, and honestly it's not even a version of me that's grounded in reality. The reality is that I'm okay, that Jordan cares about me, and that there's enough.

I have so much yet to learn. But at least I can see it now.