Richard Toops

The metaphysical effect of gasoline prices

I just filled up my gas tank, and paid $3.59 per gallon. There is an irony in this, as I filled up my gas tank at this exact same spot 40 years ago for only 29 cents a gallon. The argument can be made that I was only earning $1.75 an hour at that time, but there is a deeper issue in all of this that I have observed and want to comment on. And it has to do with the feeling of scarcity.

Since I pay particular attention to the price of oil relative to the price of just about everything else in our society, I’ve watched the price to the end user literally skyrocket as the argument of political instability in the regions that produce oil is used to justify this phenomena. One thing I’m pretty confident of…we won’t see 29 cents per gallon again.

The effect of this dramatic price increase in a commodity that we literally take for granted as a condition of living modern life has driven some interesting behavior to the surface of the average persons consciousness. Bicycle sales are at an all time high. As are walking shoe sales. Most folks are rethinking vacation plans. And airlines are instructing pilots to fly “slower”.

All of this has caused me to take a thought inventory of the effect this is having on the way I think about living life. I do a lot of traveling, most of it by car. So watching the gas gage climb to $70 for a tank of gas, when I’m accustomed to paying less than half that made my fiscal belts squeak loudly. And I recognized that old familiar feeling from a long time ago of “not enough”.  And that was enough to make me stop right in my tracks.

Think what happens when you’re unable to breathe as you normally would (how many of you just took a deep breath)? Can you imagine the thought processes that begin to race through your consciousness? There is a heavy inoculation of negative stuff in an atmosphere of scarcity, which is our logical mind over riding the natural essence and flow of living our lives.

Wallace Wattles discusses this idea in Chapter 3 of his timeless book “The Science of Getting Rich” and makes the following observation:

 “Nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of riches; the supply willnever run short. Original substance is alive with creative energy,and is constantly producing more forms. When the supply of building material is exhausted, more will be produced. When the soil is exhausted so that food stuffs and materials for clothing will no longer grow upon it, it will be renewed or more soil will be made. When all the gold and silver has been dug from the earth, if humanity is still in such a stage of social development that it needs gold and silver, more will produced from theformless. The formless stuff responds to the needs of mankind;it will not let the world be without any good thing.”   

 Feel the difference of approaching life with outrageous abundance versus the idea that there may just not be enough? If I believe that the formless stuff is ever attentive to my essence that is what I experience as my reality. Conversely, if I begin squeaking at the $3.59 per gallon gasoline, I am polluting my thought processes in all other areas of my life, and that becomes my reality. And I can tell you from first hand experience it can get into every area of your life.

So after my sharing this thought process with you, guess what my choice was? If you guessed to follow abundance, you are absolutely right. Trying to fold yourself up into a shape that fits the prevailing wisdom is uncomfortable, and once you’ve experienced a long, deep breath of fresh air you’re not inclined to hang around where air is deemed to be in short supply especially when it’s a choice for you to make anyway!