“Better too much than too little” is the kind of saying we repeat with a smile, almost as if it were a small insurance policy against the unexpected. If something might not be enough, we would rather have a little extra. If ten people are coming to dinner, we prepare food for twelve. If a journey takes an hour, we leave with time to spare. Behind this saying lies an understandable instinct: scarcity frightens us, while abundance makes us feel safe.
Yet, as the years pass, I have learned to distrust rules that claim to work in every situation. Even the wisest sayings need to be questioned. More is not necessarily better, just as having less is not always a mistake. Perhaps the real question is not about quantity at all. It is about the possibility of correction.
Before asking whether it is better to have more or less, I should ask: can what I am about to do be reversed?
The simple lesson of salt
In the kitchen, the principle becomes obvious. If I add too little salt, I can taste the dish and add some more. If I add too much, going back is difficult and sometimes impossible. In that situation, less is better, because the shortage leaves a possibility open, while the excess closes it.
Salt is only an example, but it reveals something important. Not every shortage is the same, and not every excess is harmless. Some deficiencies are temporary and easily repaired; some excesses leave consequences behind. A judgment delivered too harshly, words spoken in anger, or a promise made carelessly can resemble salt poured without measure: once they have entered another person’s life, they are not easily taken back.
Prudence, then, does not always mean accumulating more. Sometimes it means moving gradually, tasting as we go, and observing the effect of our actions before adding anything else. The right measure is not immobility; it is attention. It means acting without needlessly consuming the margin that allows us to change our minds.
Time cannot be added afterward
With time, almost the opposite is true. Arriving a few minutes early may seem like a minor excess, but arriving late takes away something we may never be able to return. Lost money might be earned again. An object can be replaced. A missed appointment, a final farewell, or an hour not spent with someone we love belongs to a kind of time that does not come back.
For this reason, when time is concerned, I prefer abundance. I do not mean filling every day with more commitments. I mean leaving a margin: room for the unexpected, for listening without watching the clock, and for keeping every encounter from becoming a race. Arriving early is not always wasted time. Sometimes it means truly arriving, with both mind and heart.
Abundant time is not crowded time. It is time that allows us to be present. We can possess many hours without being fully present in any of them. We can also give someone only a few minutes with such complete attention that those minutes become precious. Here too, quantity alone is not enough. What matters is what that quantity makes possible.
Nor does devoting more and more time to something guarantee a better result. We can continue perfecting a piece of work long after it is good enough, postpone a decision while waiting for impossible certainty, or sacrifice years to the accumulation of achievements. Before giving another hour to a task, we should ask whom or what we are taking it from.
Wealth opens doors, but it also presents a bill
Wealth also appears to confirm that more is better. Having resources offers freedom, provides protection against uncertainty, and expands our choices. A person with something to spare can help others, invest, travel, receive care, and support the people they love. It would be naïve to pretend that money does not matter.
But every abundance has a cost, and that cost does not always appear in our accounts. If accumulating wealth causes me to lose affection, peace of mind, health, or the chance to watch my children grow, I must ask what I have truly gained. Money expands our choices only until it becomes the master that chooses on our behalf.
The true measure of wealth is not simply how much we possess, but how much life we must sacrifice in order to possess it. Money should serve life; it should not demand that life serve it. Sometimes “more” is a reserve of freedom. At other times, it is a prison built from expensive materials.
I do not believe the answer is to romanticize poverty or condemn well-being. I believe we need to recognize the point at which what is necessary becomes enough, and enough is in danger of becoming an endless hunger.
More information is not yet knowledge
We live in an age in which we can access more information than a person in the past might have encountered in an entire lifetime. Such abundance seems like an unquestionable advantage. It is an advantage, but only when we are able to select, understand, and organize what reaches us.
One more piece of information may clarify a decision. A thousand unfiltered pieces of information may make that decision impossible. When every voice demands the same attention, truth does not become more visible; it is often buried beneath the noise. Abundance is useful when it can be searched, filtered, and selected. Otherwise, it produces fatigue and confusion rather than knowledge.
Being informed does not mean knowing everything. It also means recognizing what matters, which sources deserve our trust, and when we have gathered enough evidence to act. Wisdom does not consist in retaining every fact. It lies in distinguishing what illuminates from what merely distracts.
There is another kind of excess: the information we entrust to other people. A confidence revealed, words published, or an image shared cannot always be called back. What is missing can often be added; what has been exposed does not easily become private again. Discretion is not a poverty of communication, but care for our own dignity and the dignity of others.
Making decisions while leaving room to change
In important decisions, I therefore try to follow a simple principle: when I do not have every answer, I choose, whenever possible, the step that still allows me to correct my direction. This is not indecision. It is humility in the face of life’s complexity.
Some choices require courage and firmness, but firmness can coexist with the ability to admit a mistake. We can begin on a small scale, observe the results, listen, and change our method. We can apologize before pride turns a small distance into a great one. We can leave a door open without abandoning our principles.
Freedom does not consist only in having many options at the beginning. It also means not needlessly destroying our ability to change later. A wise decision is not always a perfect decision. It is often the one that limits the harm of a possible mistake and preserves room for learning.
This does not mean always living with an escape route. Some bonds and values gain meaning precisely because they call for steadfastness. Love, care, and fidelity are not experiments to abandon at the first discomfort. Before making a promise we should be free and clear-minded; after making it, we should remember that another person has entrusted something to our word.
Reversibility is prudence before a choice; it must not become an excuse for avoiding responsibility after we have chosen.
Measure within love
Even in love, where we would like to believe that more must always be better, quantity needs to be guided by quality. We can be abundant in presence, care, patience, and gratitude. Yet attention can turn into control, protection can become possession, and our desire to be indispensable can take freedom away from the person we claim to love.
To love deeply does not mean occupying all the available space. It also means knowing when to step aside, listening, respecting silence, and allowing another person to be different from the person we imagined. Perhaps love calls for a measure of its own: abundance in what we give and restraint in what we demand.
A principle that does not claim to be absolute
In the end, I do not want to replace one proverb with another. That would simply create a new formula destined to meet an exception sooner or later. Instead, I want to leave behind a question: if I get the quantity wrong, will I still be able to put things right?
If I can add but cannot remove, I will begin with less. If I can preserve but cannot recover, as with time, I will leave a generous margin. If what I accumulate truly expands my freedom, I will recognize its value. If it begins to consume the life it was meant to protect, I will seek the courage to stop. If information helps me see more clearly, I will continue searching. If it prevents me from choosing, I will make room for silence.
This is the thought I would like to entrust to my children: do not always seek the maximum; seek what keeps the possibility of goodness alive. Be abundant with the time you give to those you love, with kindness in your words, with patience toward mistakes, and with courage when it is time to change direction. Be sparing, instead, with judgment, pride, and everything that cannot be gathered up once it has been poured out.
Perhaps wisdom lies neither in abundance nor in scarcity. It lies in recognizing the difference between what can be added, what can be removed, and what, once lost, can never return.