Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Opportunity creates the need

Have you ever stopped to notice how many times in a day the mere realization that something is out there creates a "need" for you to have it?  This is the principle commercials exploit.  This is why I wanted (but ended up telling myself no and walking away) a two pack of the most beautiful blue aluminum water bottles in Target today.

I certainly don't need more water bottles (even though these were BEAUTIFUL!).  I have a blue and an orange liter Nalgene bottles, a .75 liter, and a yellow .5 liter bottle.  I truly don't need any more -- how much water can a girl drink?  But just seeing them sitting there on the shelf all shiny and new made them better than the ones that are strategically scattered along my daily path.

And sure...you might say, they're only $9 for the set -- what's the big deal?  But the deal is that I don't need them.  They probably won't add $9 worth of value to my life and I have (literally) no space on my water bottle shelf for them.  So what would I gain?

I would definitely gain a moment of the satisfaction of owning them.  I might enjoy them the first time I drank out of them (or maybe I wouldn't notice).  It isn't that I really need them -- I just thought I did because I was presented with an option to buy them.

How many times is food like that for you?  You aren't even thinking about food and someone will tell you there are cookies in the break room.  Pretty soon that is all you can think about -- the cookies (that you didn't want, much less need) sitting available in another room in your building.

Sometimes, you just need to tell yourself no and walk away.  There isn't any room to store them.  They're not worth the price you are going to pay for them (even if they are free -- sometimes free is expensive too).

You could say there's only two of them -- what's it going to hurt?  But I counter with the question:  there's only two of them, what's it going to help?  Two uneaten means calories lost on your way to your goal.  And you've made a responsible decision to manage your resources wisely.

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