Don’t ask for what you can consume at once; ask for what you can grow. When you have opportunity, don’t ask for bread, ask for seed. Bread fills you now but you become hungry after. Seed feeds you now and later. Here is why.

There had been severe famine in the land and hunger was rife. The people thought what they needed was bread so they went to the Controller of Grains and batter with their cattle. He gave them bread and took their cattle. The arrangement subsisted for one year but the following year, hunger continued to hang around the people. They gave up the remaining batch of their cattle for more bread.

At some point it occurred to them that they were facing certain death by the choice of asking for bread and giving up what was left of their possession for the diminishing and vanishing resource. Somehow they happened on the truth that what they needed was something they could grow. They needed seeds, no longer bread.

So they made another visit to the Controller of Grains, asking for seed and not bread. Finally, he must have sighed, you finally get it. When all you have is you and your land, all you need is seed.