Thought of the Day 10.15.08

This morning, Spencer and I were rolling a matchbox car back and forth at the atrium of the doctor’s office when it went over the edge into the vines and foliage. Having previously rescued objects from this area, I went to retrieve it. No luck. So I looked some more. Nothing. I looked…and looked…and looked for this white car in the two or three inches of dark green leaves, but I kept not finding it.

I couldn’t fathom how something so visible could be so hidden in only a few square feet of easily movable underbrush. So I kept looking. Surely I couldn’t continue to fail. Any moment I would see it. Besides, giving up would mean admitting that the time already overspent had been wasted, too. And I could easily envision success and the savory triumph that would come with it. But after 20 minutes of searching, I forced myself to quit.

Resisting the temptation to spend even more good time after bad by admitting failure was far more painful than the loss of the car itself. Perhaps there’s a lesson here about our current financial circumstances.