Every single piece of furniture that I had to assemble in Vietnam left me standing with one extra bolt. Every single one of them. And believe me, during the last year, I was a heavy furniture assembler: from the newborn crib, up to the cupboard, desks or shelves in the latest place we moved to. And the last bolt was always extra: the furniture was perfect, finished, complete. Just one extra tiny connecting piece left.

It did occur to me that this extra bolt was “just in case”, like a nice, supportive way of saying: “we know you may not get the right assembly order from the first try, so we got you covered”. Nice touch. Still, I spent a solid 10 minutes scratching my head each time at the end of the process, staring at the crib, or at the desk or at the shelves, trying to understand what I did wrong.

The Anxiety of Having Extra Options

I come from a place – or, to be more precise, from an age – where everything must fit perfectly. You had one shot, you had to make it. Everything had to be perfect from the first try, because that was the exact number of tries you had: one. So today, when I am facing multiple options, I get anxious.

There must be something wrong, why the extra bolt? What am I missing, what’s the trap here?

And that’s where the concept of abundance starts to make sense. Intrinsically, abundance means “extra”. You can get away with 2 meals per day, but if you can afford 3 or 4, you live in abundance. If you can give away some of your food to other people, you live in abundance. If you can support other people with your money, and not just yourself, you live in abundance.

The extra bolt that you’re left with, that’s abundance.

Making Friends With the Extra Bolt

The first part of this post actually took a few months. I slowly went from the head-scratching pose to some more introspection and then, maybe after half a year, I realized that my mind was wired into scarcity. Nobody’s fault here, I was born in a specific place, and that’s how life was back then. But still, my mind was triggered into confusion by the smallest sign of abundance.

Now, rewiring your brain is a delicate thing. It is absolutely possible (and advisable, honestly) but it takes time and attention. So I slowly started to make friends with the extra bolt. I’m not at the point where I expect to see it, but when it happens to be just us, at the end of the assembled cupboard, I look at the tiny guy with gratitude, not with confusion.

I know the deep patterns will still be triggered, until I get to the bottom of my unconscious conditioning – but for now, me and the bolt are at the beginning of a beautiful friendship.