The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

January 10Cast Your Bread

Mother's motto was “Hope, and keep busy,” and one of her sayings, “Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will come back buttered.”

Louisa May Alcott—Her Life, Letters, and Journals (1914)

The message contained in today's reading is a playful version of a notion as old as all of civilization. It appears in the book of Ecclesiastes 11:1–6 (v. 1—Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days) and could be seen as a literal characterization of the practice of the ancient Egyptian farmers who would cast seeds on top of the spring floodwaters of the Nile so that when the water receded the now-germinated seeds would settle into the rich soil and produce a fruitful harvest.

In Her Life, Letters, and Journals, Alcott recounts a winter when a neighbor lacked firewood, so her parents gave half of their dwindling pile to the neighbor in need without any real idea of how they would provide enough heat for their own home.

Shortly after a woodcutter passing by feared the drifting snow and asked if he could drop off his load there; he told them that because they were doing him a favor, they needn't hurry about paying for it.

The universe has an amazing scorekeeping system, and those who trust that what they need will show up at the appropriate moment can stay focused on acting in a mindset of prosperity.

An essential element of self-reliance is the belief that all things are connected and that what is good for others is ...