What if we could experience this world from a different perspective - a different point of view from the one most people have?  What if this world is really set up for you, me, and everyone else to succeed - easily.  Sound crazy?  Yet we've all known people who have achieved prosperity in the broadest terms, whose lives seem differ-ent in that they are not struggling the way many of us are.  Some of these people have discovered the prosperity principle - a unique attitude or point of view about life.

     The prosperity principle is a way of looking at life as if everything happens for our benefit.  From this perspective, we learn to accept 'what is' and work with it.  We stop demanding that people or circumstances change in order that we can be happy.  We come to realize that the reason for any event in life is to learn something we need to know to take our next step in growth.
     Interpreting whatever life brings as happening for our benefit does not mean we suddenly have no problems.  It also does not mean we suddenly experience no pain or anxiety in life.  We do not have a choice of whether or not to have problems in life.  We will always have problems.  In fact, if we ever got rid of them, we would go out and get some more.  Why?  Because we create them to grow by; problems are our opportunity to grow.
     What does happen when we live by the prosperity principle is that we look for growth and opportunity in all experiences.  Divorce, for example, may be a shattering event but it also has the potential for positive change that possibly had been needed for a long time.
     With this new perspective of looking for the lesson in 'negative' events, we are able to experience emotional pain and suffering with a different attitude.  We know, for instance, that emotional pain can be an alarm indicating disharmony in the mind.  Pain is often triggered by fear, caused by thought.  When this is happening, the pain is our signal to release fearful thought in some area of our life.
     Another outcome of living from this new perspective is learning that we cannot fail.  We only choose not to go any further on a particular path.  We then experience the success of choosing to let go of what is not working.  From this point of view, then, our problems, barriers, challenges are seen as opportunities to grow and we bless them accordingly.

     The 'scarcity principle' is the opposite of the prosperity principle.  To those living under scarcity, there is never 'enough' in life: enough money, love, sex, power, ad infinitum.  As Auntie Mame said, "Life is a banquet, and most poor fools are starving to death!" Many people feel inadequate in themselves - incomplete - and want 'something' from others but do not know exactly what.  They love in order to receive.  Love becomes a barter.  The only thing they have plenty of is self-doubt.  Success to them means someone else must lose, for there is only so much to go around.  There are only winners and losers in their world.
     Scarcity thinkers often feel that any significant movement of thought, idea, or behavior will result in a loss rather than a gain.  For this reason, they rarely anticipate the future with hope.  They resist change by hanging onto old ideas and behavior whether they bring happiness or not.  After a while, getting what they truly want doesn't even enter the picture as a possibility.  They rationalize by saying, "This may be bad, but at least I know what to expect." This kind of thinking keeps us in jobs, marriages, and relationships we have outgrown and yet fear letting go of.
     Many who are in scarcity consciousness resist change vigorously.  We can't seem to get enough of what we don't really want once we think in scarcity.
     One client of mine, Marie, had established a scarcity consciousness early in life, and was having difficulty giving it up when she came in to see me.  Even though she was the wife of a very successful businessman, Marie was making herself miserable trying to live out her mother's image of the perfect, supportive, self-denying wife.  Her frugality knew no end.  She shopped the Good Wills and St. Vincents for bargains on winter clothes, skimped on food, and always bought the older bruised fruits and vegetables.  As her husband's business expanded and there was plenty of money, Maria still could not spend - on herself or her family.  She insisted on saving everything for a 'rainy day'.  With increasing financial prosperity, she actually became more miserable.
     The rainy day had come all right - but not in the way she had anticipated.  She knew how to handle poverty - but she did not know how to handle prosperity!  Life was not to be enjoyed, but to be saved for.
     By acknowledging her basic fears of loss that money represented to her, she was eventually able to start en-joying her money and to use it the way it was intended -as a sharing medium.  As long as she focused on how little there was in life, how far it had to go around, and how difficult it was to get one's share, Maria was stuck in scarcity thinking.  Even new, prosperous events are in-terpreted in the poverty framework when we are in scarcity consciousness.

     How do we view life from the 'prosperity perspective'?  A Prospering Woman accepts the flow of life readily and adapts to unforeseen shifts.  Being flexible, she is able to quickly take advantage of opportunities as life presents them.  She sees that change is inevitable and desirable.  She is open to the endless opportunities all around her.  She experiences life as living in a universe filled with abundance - and gives herself total permission to help herself to her share.
     She knows that her own thoughts, attitudes, and fears limit or expand her relationship to this universal abundance.  She has dreams of where she wants to go based on a realistic evaluation of herself and her environment.  She has a live-and-let-live attitude toward others: cooperating, assisting when she can, and releas-ing when she can't.  She knows she has a choice, and she deliberately chooses to focus on what is possible instead of what isn't.
     Most of us slide into and out of both the consciousness of prosperity and scarcity.  We are always in the process of expressing one or the other.  To change scarcity thinking we need to recognize the signs of it: fear, anxi-ety, and worry.  By releasing these emotions, we have a choice of seeing all the benefits in each situation, and gathering valuable information for the next step in our growth.

Pauline Cotten, 33 years old, is owner of three profitable gift shops called the Calico Cat, in the San Francisco Bay area.

Q: What do you think is the key to your success in business?

A: I never let things get me down.  I take things as a lesson.  Ever since high school, I've had this thought in my head, "If three bad things happen, something good will happen." And sure enough, it would!  You have to believe there is something good coming down the road for you.

Q: How did you start thinking about going into business
for yourself?

A: After college, I tried working for someone, but found out
right away I didn't like it.  I took stock of my talents and skills.  I knew very little about retailing.  My father had been in business for himself and I admired what he did.  Some people think what I've done is special.  I don't think so.  I just did a lot of thinking about it.  I got very specific about what I wanted.  I decided exactly what kind of store I wanted.  I developed it around a specialty item that no one else had.  I was the only one in the area with this concept of selling.  I resisted all outside pressure to include other items and it has paid off.  Now the customers come to me specially for what I have.  I enjoy being different.

Q: Were you afraid of taking the risks involved in starting business?

A: I learned in incremental steps.  I started small so I made
mistakes and learned on a small scale which I could apply as I grew.