Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

by Michael Easter

As a science journalist and professor, I believe science offers us many answers. But through all my time on the ground speaking to people across the spectrum of living, I’ve learned that some of the most important things about being a human—the things that most change a person’s and a community’s life for the better—can’t be measured. For thousands of years, we got to these “things,” these ideas, through myth and ritual. Then science came in and started to help explain why certain ideas and traditions work or don’t. We started measuring in numbers and data and figures. Somewhere along the way we devalued those most important unmeasurables. In my work and thinking, I now think of it as balancing science with soul. Too much science, and we lose the most important aspects of the human experience. Too much soul, and we can lead ourselves into delusion. I’ve seen ideas of religion both enhance and ruin lives. Despite my wavering, the most good in my life has come when I’m more in tune with my blurry notion of God and getting out of myself. So let’s call it a draw.