Small Packets of Abundance: The Gifts You’ve Been Ignoring Your Whole Life

The “reality” of many people is hunger, joblessness, and loneliness, just to name a few. But, in reality, we have more food on earth than we can consume, entire industries with opportunities are emerging every day, and there have never been this many people on the surface of the planet, ever.

So, why do the facts conflict with many people’s reality?

This piece will be my attempt to explain—to explain why everything you want is already around you in super-abundant amounts, and perhaps what you should do about this.

And, I will explain using something we all take for granted—the sun.

What the Sun Teaches Us About Life

If you understand the relationship between the earth and the sun, it would completely change how you approach your life—from finance to relationships to your career.

The sun is pure energy in the truest sense: You may not know this, but you could fit a million Earths into the sun. Furthermore, every second, the sun produces about 384.6 Yottawatts of energy, which is roughly equal to the amount of energy that would be produced if you blew up 4 billion 1 megaton nuclear bombs—that’s more energy than humanity has used throughout history, released every second.

What is more common knowledge is the idea that life on Earth is sustained by this energy from the sun. But how exactly the sun’s energy sustains life is something most people don’t really understand.

If you went to school and didn’t skip classes, you must have heard of photosynthesis—how plants transform sunlight into food, then get eaten by herbivores, who then get eaten by carnivores, and then both plants and animals get eaten by micro-organisms. Which, on the surface, seems like the energy from the Sun goes through all living things only to end in decay. But that is actually a shallow way of looking at things.

The truth is that plants don’t actually store the energy they receive from the sun. If they did, considering we receive a massive 173,000 terawatts of constant sunlight every second, the plants—heck, the whole earth—would have heated up and burnt off a long time ago.

Rather, that bundle of sunlight/energy simply flows through the plant. But as it passes, it’s used to do work – to break down compounds like carbon dioxide and water, and the constituent carbon and hydrogen, which are then used to build the plant’s body, from roots to fruits.

Think of it like riding a bicycle—you exert great force on the pedal, but that force is almost immediately transferred to the ground, propelling you forward. Similarly, most of the energy from the sun is radiated almost immediately back into space. Nevertheless, just like the force causes the chains and gears to rotate and spin, causing motion, the energy from the sun brings about photosynthesis and other biological processes, causing life.

How does this relate to your life?

Just like the sun’s energy flows through the plants, so too food, money, strength, knowledge, time, and so on, flow through you.

The question is, what are you doing with everything flowing through you right now?

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For most of my life, I had the desire to acquire stuff—to make a million naira, have a girlfriend, have millions of followers, etcetera. But as I grew and experienced life, I slowly realised that over the years, I have in fact earned and spent millions of naira, experienced all that relationships offer, reached millions of people online, and yet I still felt lacking.

Why?

Because I was trying to hold onto what should never be held onto.

Eventually, when you die, it all still dissipates: your body to the earth, and money back into the economy.

It is very common to believe that you need to POSSESS things which you were rather meant to use or simply experience.

• Maybe you don’t need those millions of naira. What you need is to take care of your basic needs and build something valuable for society—a school, software, or piece of art.
• Maybe you don’t need the perfect relationship. What you need is to build a family, raise kids, and create a legacy.
• Maybe you don’t need those millions of followers. What you need is to share your message with that one follower who needs it, connect authentically, and create real impact.

Maybe you need to start treating the little things like big things. Because most good things often come in small bits, and are only as useful as you make them.

The question is, do you see the value in the little things?

Consciousness Is Your Superpower

All living things make use of what is available to them, and the higher the consciousness, the greater the possibilities:

• Plants grow larger, release oxygen, and produce fruits. 
• Animals move around, dig holes, and reshape the earth. 
• And humans, which are the most conscious animals, build skyscrapers, rockets, and entire civilisations.

Sadly, on an individual basis, most potential is wasted—the time, the energy, the attention, the knowledge—because people keep waiting to have “enough” of them, without realising it is all about using the small packets effectively.

Today, we are immensely more productive than people during the Stone Age—by exponential margins: During the Stone Age, one person could barely feed themselves, huts took weeks to build, and information travelled at the speed of sound. Today, one farmer can feed hundreds of people, skyscrapers can be completed in months, and information travels at the speed of light.

No new resources came to Earth. It was all the same resources, yet radically different utilisation.

The ultimate question isn’t whether there are enough resources, or if you can, but what is the most efficient use of those resources that have and will continue to flow through you as long as you are alive?

You can use your:

• Time to build skills.
• Food to build muscle. 
• Attention to build knowledge. 
• Energy to do work and render services.
• Money to acquire assets and create value. 
• Etcetera.

And the more intentionally you use what flows through you, the more alive you feel.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

Most people don’t realise how transient everything is until they are on their deathbed, watching their own life flow away.

Realise today that there is nothing else other than opportunity around you. Feel it flowing. Really feel it within and around. Both tangible and intangible.

Yes, it can be difficult to efficiently use all that life gives you. It took hundreds of years to push the efficiency of machines during the industrial age from struggling around 5-15% to as high as 50-90% efficient today. But that only goes on to reinforce the idea that the challenge is not the resource but your awareness of and ability to tap into it.

You may not be making the most of everything today. But this is no excuse not to try.

Make it a habit to always pause and:

• Notice what’s flowing through your life right now. 
• Decide what to build even when unsure how. 
• Channel the flow towards that thing. 
• And be patient.

Trees grow using the energy from the sun, but growth doesn’t happen in a day.

Decide today to notice the abundance: This could be 

• the people you could be building more meaningful relationships with, 
• the technology you could be leveraging to solve problems, 
• the ideas you could blend to create art, 
• and so much more.

Conclusion: Whether You Use What You Have or Not, It Will Still Flow Through You.

I am 28 years old (today) and unemployed. By conventional standards, I should be waiting—waiting to get a job, waiting to have money, waiting to be “ready” before I start building anything meaningful.

But time is ticking. I am ageing. Whether I use what I have or not, it will still flow through me. And there is a lot flowing through me—time, strength, ideas, money, connections, tools, and so on.

Waiting to accumulate is a trap. Waiting for a job, marriage, or some perfect opportunity is how people waste most of their lives.

The more you act with what you have, the more you realise you’re capable of. The more you see, the more you appreciate. The more you do, the more opportunities appear.

• If you have time: Use it to learn a skill, build something, or help someone.
• If you have energy: Use it to exercise, to work, to create.
• If you have attention: Use it to gain knowledge, to focus deeply, to solve problems.
• If you have money: Use it to acquire assets, to invest in yourself, to create value for others.
• If you have relationships: Use them to build community, to collaborate, to support and be supported.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Stop waiting to be ready. Stop waiting to have “enough.”

You don’t have to wait for things to fall into place; you can build them into place, little by little, one small packet at a time.

You could even join our community to start building a fuller life with the small packets Life offers.

Cheers to living life to the fullest!

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4. Preparing For Greener Pastures: The Value of Personal Development, Even When You Have Nothing To Show For It
5. Finding Your Superpower: A Guide to Discovering What Truly Sets You Apart