I was rummaging through my Zettelkasten today, looking for a reference. I found the note 20190823100132 You can choose when you live in surplus and in the spirit of celebrating a new year, I find it is worth sharing:

Seth Godin in Living in Surplus:

When you live in surplus, you can choose to produce because of generosity and wonder, not because you’re drowning.

and

spend a bit less than you make, so you’re never worried about paying the rent

Shawn Blanc gives this a spin: you can choose when you have surplus. You decide what the baseline level of “enough” is.

In a practical sense, this boils down to not trying to become rich first, then being generous. You can start to be generous even if you have very little yourself. First, though, you need to stop wanting more before you allow yourself to give.