💬 Kierkegaard on the anxiety that accompanies riches, the pitfalls of wealth, and the assurance of Providence in Christian Discourses:
Why, naturally, the bird teaches us the surest way to avoid the anxiety of riches and abundance. Namely, not to lay up riches and abundance—bearing in mind that one is a traveller. And in the second place, it teaches us to be ignorant of the fact that one has abundance—bearing in mind that one is a traveller. For, like that simple wise man of ancient times, the bird imparts to us instruction in ignorance [by the way it lives]…
How then does the bird live? Well, it is God who every day metes out to the bird the definite measure, i.e. enough; but it never occurs to the bird that it has, or might wish to have, more than enough. What God gives every day is… enough. If the little bird quenches its thirst on a dew-drop, which is exactly enough, or if it drinks from the largest lake, it takes just as little. It does not require to have all that it sees, nor to have the whole lake because it drinks from it, nor to take the lake with it so that it may be secured for its whole life… It merely takes enough.
Oof, so good to re-read. I am quite convinced that one of the most powerful concepts in the world is the concept of enough.