Years back, my wife started buying Dove Chocolates as a nice little after dinner treat. This was all fine and good until the Dove Dark Chocolate came out. One after dinner led to a wholesale size bag kept at the office and two after lunch, and so I continued to sink. I have since reigned in the madness, but that didn’t stop me from buying the 82% cacao Deepest Dark Chocolate Dove pack. I saw it sitting there, winking at me from an end of the aisle display and I thought to myself, “How could we go wrong with more dark chocolate? Could there really be such a thing like too much chocolate?”
Unlike televisions (which I still hold fast to the rule that the bigger the better) I found that dark chocolate most definitely has a point of no return. The once sweet experience was totally dominated by the intense and bitter taste of all that cacao crammed into one little morsel of a bite. I suppose that through will power and repetition I could develop the taste and learn to love the deepest dark in the same way as its lesser cousin Just Dark, but who has the time?
As we continue to make our way through this pandemic laden world, here a few things that I believe there CANNOT be too much of:
- Automation – Stop letting that savings build up and sit idle in the bank earning basically no interest. Set up an automatic investment on a monthly basis to get that money working harder, faster. This goes for savings for your children’s future, your own retirement/fun, or that long (oh so long) awaited family vacation.
- Thinking Long Term – In times of stress, we have a tendency to narrow our vision and focus most intensely on the immediate problem/concerns. After a year and a half of daily pandemic news, this nearsightedness should be getting strained. Although the lyrics are no longer permanently bouncing through the chambers of my brain, I am going to quote some Hamilton. “I’m laughin in the face of casualties and sorrow. For the first time I’m thinking past tomorrow!”
- Paying Attention to Your Transactions – I couldn’t think of a more boring task than reviewing, line by line, the transactions of our credit card and bank account. At the same time, fraud, stolen credit card numbers and online ID theft is running rampant. As good as the algorithms are at spotting anomalies in your purchases, an old fashioned once over of your spending history is still the best line of defense.
- Spending Money on Printing Pictures – You read that correctly…I said printing pictures. Having pictures developed. This advice to spend won’t last long, so jump on the spending train now! I think everyone should spend at least $100 on actually having their favorite photographs developed and put into an album. A slideshow on the never too big TV is great, but there is something special about having to take the time to flip through page by page.
I hope your weekend is full of just the right amount of cacao, numerous trips to the CVS photo counter, and a healthy dose of quiet time to reflect on all the good things the future holds.
Happy Friday! Please stay healthy and be safe!