A few weeks ago, I got a parking ticket.
I went to meet up with a group of friends at a bar in Nashville, and forgot to pay the $5 for parking at the parking terminal on my way in. After about 45 minutes, while sitting in the restaurant, I remembered.
Oh crap.
I ran out to my car, and sure enough, right there tucked under my windshield wiper was a small manilla envelope.
I sheepishly grabbed it, and saw a fine for $70 plus a processing fee.
My $7 hazy IPA suddenly got a lot more expensive.
I was also having a crap day.
So how did I respond?
I laughed.
Then, I went back into the restaurant and finished hanging out with my friends. Later that night I paid the parking ticket and then transferred the exact amount of the ticket from my “Absent Minded Fund” into my checking account.
(Yes, this used to be called my “idiot fund”, but I’m trying to have a nicer inner critic!)
This is a specific, separate savings account I keep that I contribute a small amount to every month, that is specifically for paying for the occasional mistake that I might make absentmindedly.
Sure, it would be great if I never made absent minded mistakes. And yep, it would be great if some of them were less financially punitive.
But also, this is life. Rather than beating myself up for something I clearly didn’t do on purpose, I can move on with my life.
The important part, just like the Ulysses Pact I wrote about previously, is that I could weather this storm because of my proactiveness in the past:
Making a decision during a moment of strength, to protect against a future moment of weakness.
I had a lot on my mind that night, and in a moment of weakness, I didn’t pay for parking. But because of Past Steve’s acceptance that “sh** happens!,” this didn’t affect me in the slightest.
And it has me thinking about this in terms of wellness too.
Emergency Workout Fund
I really enjoyed this post from Andrew Coates:
I’ve recently written about what to do when you don’t like to work out. We can help ourselves tremendously if we can make our workouts more physically or emotionally beneficial.
After all, something special can happen when we find ways to work out even on the days when we don’t feel like it.
We can prove to ourselves that we can do hard things. We prove to ourselves that we’re the type of person who can work out even without motivation. There’s a certain sense of pride and accomplishment that comes after too.
And not only that, but in this example, doing a workout when we don’t want to is like putting money into an “Emergency Workout Fund.”
We’re banking extra days off for when we really need them in the future.
I hope this gives you a little bit of a nudge to get that workout in today, even when you don’t feel like it.
Start putting workouts into the Emergency Workout fund! Future You will thank you. I promise.
-Steve
