Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 01:55 am
“Don’t mess with Mr. T
Don’t mess with Mr. T
T (he’ll get ya)
T (he’ll get ya)
T (he’ll get ya)
T (temptation…)”— Big Sean, “Mr. T”
If I were to write a list of the things in life that can be a pain in the ass, temptation would be way up there on the list. All too often, our ids take us down paths we probably shouldn’t be taking, mostly due to the Mr. T mentioned above. Whether it’s a minor temptation (e.g. “Just one more piece”, “It can wait ’til tomorrow” or “Just let me sleep another 10 minutes”) or a major one (e.g. “S/he never has to find out”, “Just this once” or “What harm could it do?”), they’re always there, just waiting to wrench us from our paths. I’m not even talking about this from a religious standpoint (though, admittedly, it’d be way easier to do so since there’s a standard set of rules one must abide by, more or less)—even if you don’t believe in a creator, there are temptations you’ll come across in life that you might take and REALLY come to regret later.
You’ve seen some themes repeat themselves in my posts a few times since the beginning of the year—this is because I think that they’re important and just good, solid advice that can help YOU through the challenges you’re SURE to face in life.
Let me focus on a few of these principles now so we can discuss how you can better manage temptations when they come your way:
- Go with your gut. Your gut instinct is there to protect you against all sorts of things that might be out to worsen your life—it’s the combined force of the experiences you’ve had in life so far and acts as your guiding light when things might get too confusing. DO NOT IGNORE IT. If something feels wrong, IT PROBABLY IS.
- Think about the consequences. If you can’t explicitly trust your gut instinct for whatever reason, play the scenario out in your head. Try to figure out the 5 W’s and the H of the situation (who, what, where, why, when, how) and really dissect what will happen if you do what you maybe SHOULDN’T be doing. I think that just stopping for a moment to think about your potential situation will help to bring some clarity to what you might want to do next.
- If you can’t do that either, well, perhaps you should talk it through with someone else who’s been through the crap that you might be planning to do. Sometimes we don’t necessarily need to learn from experience, we can learn from the experiences of others. I’ve always found this to be a useful technique to slap some sense into myself if I’ve been thinking of doing something particularly stupid.
I’m writing this as a bit of a reminder to myself as I try to get some more work done on the Quest for Less tonight. In the last attempt, I got a lot done—I’ve mentioned before that I came out the next morning with three recycling bags full of junk. But that was on a Sunday night where I had to work the next day. This time, I have tomorrow off, and I hope to have a long jaunt of taking care of business. I think I’ll be tempted to get distracted and not do what I feel needs doing, so I’m just hoping that I can get a lot of this done once and for all. Including… the dreaded BOX:
Yes, I’d mentioned it first in the Quest for Less: Introduction, but it had never gotten dealt with at the time. This time, it’s on like Donkey Kong. I want to return to Toronto on Thursday (or Friday at the latest) with this box dealt with. My scanner’s going to be definitely in high-use tonight!
But I’m about to head out for work at the time where I’m polishing this off, so I bid you adieu.
In other news:
The Take it and Go Contest winners to be revealed soon!
Last day to vote for my TRIUSCOVERY entry over at NatandMarie’s cocktail-naming contest
Righto, see you all later!
47/365
