Included is not the same as needed

A man flying home from Kuwait to Cairo has a generous luggage allowance on his ticket. Two large bags, a heavy weight limit, all paid for.

So in his last week he fills them. Another set of towels. A second kettle nobody at home asked for. Tins and boxes bought mainly because there was room. At the airport he wrestles the bags onto the scale, then spends the journey dragging them up stairs and through doorways, and the following month finding cupboards for things he did not need.

He did it because it was included. Leaving the space empty felt like throwing money away.

That feeling runs through a great deal of what we do. The gym class attended through an injury because the membership is paid. The extra service in the phone plan, set up and never used, but set up anyway. The features in a package we feel obliged to switch on. The second night of a holiday deal taken when everyone is already tired and wants to go home.

Included feels free, and free feels like an instruction. If it costs nothing more, the logic goes, refusing it is the waste.

But the payment has already happened, whatever we do next. The only question left is whether taking the thing leaves us better off. Often it does. Sometimes it means a heavier bag, a longer morning, a worse day.

The allowance was a limit, not a target. Nobody at arrivals checks whether he used it all.

Saying no to something already paid for is still a choice, and it is often the better one.