49. More Than You Need to Be

One of the things that I’ve found particularly useful over the years has been to take note of what the people around me are doing. To notice and take note of how your circle of friends live can be extremely beneficial. Hopefully you can surround yourself with people who are figuratively “ahead” of you, and are doing or have done things that you think may suit you now or in the future. If you notice what these people do and have done that have led them to where they are now, you can reproduce their results by doing some of the same things they did. Similarly, you can avoid doing things that leave people in less than ideal scenarios. Though this isn’t what I’ll dive into today, it is worth mentioning because recently I learned something from a friend of mine who has qualities I aspire to have.

There was to be a house warming party. Drinks and food were to be provided, and the one thing my friend was particularly conscious of was the quantity of food and drink. The key was to make sure that it would not run out. They said that they were always taught to provide more than necessary, because the alternative is less than you need. As any kind of provider, it’s a shame to put limits on what you provide. I thought that it made a lot of sense to avoid the sentence “yes we’ll have food but just don’t eat too much because we might run out”. In fact I recalled other instances of similar practice by other people I admire. Providing more than they needed to in order to ensure there was no lack.

It’s not that it’s necessary to have more than enough, but it is necessary to have enough. Perhaps one day I’ll write about the idea of an abundance mindset, but I’m still working on that one myself, so I’ll leave it to the pros. Today, I’ll just say this: get in the habit of doing and being more than you need to.