The foot and the shoe

Here's a strange thing about needs: they have a built-in limit, and we keep blowing past it. You can only eat so much before more food stops being a meal and becomes a problem. You can only wear one coat at a time. The body draws a clear line, and then the mind, which has no such line, talks us across it.

Epictetus used a shoe to make it concrete: "The body is to every one the measure of the possessions proper for it; as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure: but, if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice" (Enchiridion 39, Carter). A shoe sized to the foot does its whole job. Size it to vanity instead and there's no stopping point — first it's gilded, then jewelled, and it still only has to fit one foot.

Apply it anywhere. The portion, the wardrobe, the second fridge in the garage. Your actual need is the foot. Measure to that and you'll know when to stop, because the foot tells you. Measure to wanting, and you're on the precipice he warned about, sliding, with no bottom.