95 | A Gray Skill

Generating surplus and using surplus are two totally different skill sets.

In the simplest terms, generating surplus is ensuring that your income exceeds your spending over time.

It's a black-and-white skill - it’s relatively easy to measure, the objective is clear, and the feedback is direct - you either do it or you don’t.

For some people, high levels of income serve as the cornerstone for generating a surplus. For others, high levels of intentionality in spending serve as the cornerstone for generating a surplus.

It doesn’t matter which approach you take, but at some point, you have to learn how to generate a surplus.

Once you’ve mastered generating a surplus, the process of actually using the surplus is an entirely different puzzle - a gray skill.

It’s hard to know what things or experiences are worthy of surplus funds.

It’s not always clear what will be accomplished by using the funds.

Because the objective isn’t defined for us, there is a decent chance we will lose track of it.

And whether we like it or not, using surplus is an indirect way of beginning to define “enough”.

If you can’t hone the skill of generating a surplus, it’s going to be an anxious lifetime of overdrafts, counting down to paychecks, and shuffling around debt.

If you can’t hone the skill of using a surplus, it’s going to be an anxious lifetime of always-changing goal posts, second guessing, and wondering how much will ever be enough.

Where generating a surplus seems to provide a baseline level of security, peace of mind, and margin for error to accommodate the inevitable uncertainty of the future.

Using a surplus seems to help sow the seeds of purpose, contentment, and satisfaction that we all so deeply long to experience.

Two different skill sets that get at very different things - both worth refining over time.