You Don't Have Enough Unless You Have More Than Enough

Thoughts on risk assessment, insurance, efficiency vs. resilience

We’ve been planting grass seed to patch a bunch of bare spots in our new yard (apparently the previous owners never even attempted to fix the mudslide visible out their bedroom window). The first couple of patches we seeded have already sprouted, but the grass is annoyingly thin, such that it will require overseeding, which is trickier because you can’t till the soil for it. I had sprinkled what seemed like just the right amount of seeds on those first patches, but I guess the right amount isn’t enough.

It reminds me of something I said to my wife in a similar context (breading chicken cutlets, and finding that unless you have a lot of breadcrumbs or flour left over, the last couple of pieces are very hard to properly bread): “You don’t have enough unless you have more than enough.”