All You Can Eat Buffet
As precious a commodity as time is, we squander much of it. Time consumers are everywhere. Our phones fill the empty voids of time that could otherwise be put to a useful purpose. The phone has become the ummm… in our language. When we have nothing thoughtful to say we look at the phone to indicate that we are alive but have nothing to contribute. Just checking my messages because I am important. Our phones squander time better than anything in ourselves. One exception: the phone fills the empty void better than a Senate Confirmation hearing for a Supreme court nominee. Either Amy Coney Barrett is the smartest person on the planet or the densest. She could never pass a job interview as she has no knowledge or opinion on anything…. Beyond sad.
I was talking with the son of a gentleman who worked for me for many years. His father and I developed a successful quarter horse operation. We were talking about life lessons learned. He said he was continuing to spend money on expensive lessons, but was hoping they would be less costly in the future. I thought that was a great manner of expressing the failure to make well thought out decisions that did not cost us in time and treasure.
I have been living an expensive lesson for the past decade. I have been a frequent attendee at the all you can eat buffet. Amazing that my very disciplined eating habit was immediately forgotten when attending the buffet. After piling up my plate with samples of everything I still had the audacity to return for dessert. It has taken time and a lot of money to learn that you only need one car.
I am not pleased about the past decade. I recognized the temptations of the all you can eat buffet and had, in retrospect, stacked my plate too full. For many years I have been busy learning life lessons at an egregiously expensive rate.
What pushes us to ordering more and procuring more is our positive view of the outcome. There have been studies proving that we tend to see the positive outcome more than the negative. The pandemic is a good example. Many of us believe it will not happen to us. We have an illegitimate leader that claims to have had the disease and then miraculously recovered even though he is old and obese. The truly sick are never seen. Those that are being careful are staying at home. So, what we see are either people who are well or those that are ignoring the problem or those that are the problem but are lying about it. We overspend and we over borrow, and we are overly optimistic when thinking about the possible outcome. You stay alkaline, watch your carbs, drink lemon water first thing in the morning etc. etc. yet when it is all there in front of you, discipline vanishes, you load up the plate----what could go wrong?
I am learning this lesson in real time. I don’t need more than the car I drive. I do not need all the items I piled on my plate. After all that just makes me think I need a bigger plate. I am learning valuable lessons with the time available. I need to be closer to the people I love. I need some pals that I can grab lunch with and not have to drive an hour or plan days in advance.
What I do not need is another brownie!!!!