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The other week we had our second RISE event.
214 of us (and a few friends and family) got together (online) to take part in
It was pretty epic, I have to admit.
Everyone who took part got a medal.
I’d ordered those bad boys online to be sent to my house.
And the posted them out in the week before the event.
On the Wednesday morning I popped out to the Post Office to get envelopes and stamps.
I knew I had a number of the larger, thicker envelopes left over from last time.
So when I looked at the shelf which included the same envelopes, I noticed some smaller, cheaper ones next to them.
About a pound cheaper for the number I needed.
I figured I had enough of the bigger ones for the people who needed 3, 4 or 5 medals sending out.
And that these other ones would be sufficient for the single and double medals.
So, I got home and set about doing a mail merge from the excel export file to print the names and addresses on the envelopes.
Slight problem though.
The small envelopes were too small to be picked up by the printer.
I was tempted to go back and get some more bigger envelopes at that point.
But I’d not got my youngest son Charlie with me as his mum had started working from her bedroom office set up.
I could’ve popped him infront of a film but he already has that happen more than we’d like.
So I tried printing labels on A4 paper, cutting them out and pritt-sticking them to the envelopes.
I couldn’t get this to work for ages either.
Despite doing it the same way I always woild and the print preview showing 21 labels per page, it kept starting to print them all at one per page.
In the end I did it a different way.
And then cut them all out and stuck them the envelopes.
Reckon it took two extra hours.
Maybe more.
To save one pound.
Terrible false economy.
I’ll never do that again.
But it’s something we do again and again in other areas of our lives.
Make less good food choices becuase it saves seconds or minutes of thought or prep.
Or is pennies cheaper.
Only to pay immediately by feeling worse.
Lower energy and mood.
Frustration with ourselves.
And to pay further down the line.
With a body we don’t like the look and feel of.
And increased risk of health related challenges.
We get it.
It’s usually easier in the here and now to make those ‘less good’ decisions.
But usually not as much easier as we’re telling ourselves.
That saving isn’t much.
The equivalent to that pound.
And the cost is greater than we tell ourselves.
“Just one won’t matter”.
But it does.
And they all add up.
The equivalent of hundreds of wasted hours.
That we could’ve saved for a few pounds.
Much love,
Jon ‘Don’t like going to the Post Office or bank’ Hall
