Scarcity

I remember the story being told by my mom on a few occasions and it always brings a smile to my face.  I say I remember the telling of the story and not the actual event as I must have been about 2 years old at the time.  The story... toilet training.  Here is how I remember the story…

My dad is a budgeter.  He had (and still has) a budget for everything, including my disposable diaper allowance.  Since it was apparently becoming time for me to be weaned from diapers, my dad decided to have a conference with me.  He took me to his storage closet, filled with whatever supplies were needed for the house (toilet paper, batteries, light bulbs, diapers, etc.) and showed me the stack of diapers.  To a 2 year old, that stack of diapers appeared to be all the diapers that could possibly exist in the world.  He calmly informed me that when that stack was gone there would be no more diapers.  At that point I would simply have to use the toilet with no alternatives. 

I don’t recall what I thought as a 2 year old, but it must have been clear to me that there was a definitive limit to the diaper resources of my world.  It was so clear, evidently, that when that day of the last diaper arrived I accepted it without incidence.  I simply started using the toilet.  There was no other option. 

Now again, I was just a toddler with no real recollection of the events, but I’ve heard the story enough and it has a moral that I think deserves to be shared.  The moral, of course, is to use your resources wisely.  We live in an abundant world, yet it is definitively limited.  We will run out of resources at some point.  Someday, there will be no more diapers to absorb our mess.

If we use something today, then we won’t be able to use it tomorrow.  If we as a society use limited resources today, then we will leave a future world without the opportunity to use those resources.

We will run out of oil.  We will run out of money when we maintain a negative savings rate.  We will run out of opportunities to do the right thing.  We will run out of time. 

How do you want to live your life?  How do you want to be remembered?  How do you want to affect others?  How do you want to spend your day?  How do you want to spend your time?  …It’s probably time to start.  Time is getting scarce.