Look before you leap

Last night I went down to the Italian Festival and had a great time. There were food booths lined up on both sides of the big tent and everyone was smiling. Why not? There was fettuccine Alfredo, past primavera, chicken Caesar salad, linguine with shrimp, wine, beer, Snapple and so much more. For a few tickets you could sample the finest Italian cuisine in the region. Of course, some of us did just that. We sampled a bit of this and a bit of that all afternoon long.

The food was great but I have to admit that by the end of the evening I was looking for some alka seltzer. I had a good case of heart burn. Too much of even a good thing can be too much.

It got me thinking about the fact that sometimes we think that the little indiscretions we engage in don't really count. The truth is that they all add up. We do something we know is wrong, and even though it is a minor thing it adds up. Next thing you know we lie about it. Then we start thinking about what we did and begin to justify it. Before long the line between right and wrong is blurry.

The key is to think about what we are doing before we start. If I had thought about what I was eating, I would have sampled less and enjoyed it a lot more. The same is true when we know we are going to cross a line with our behavior. If we think about it and the consequences, we may save our selves a lot of heart ache. So look before you leap and you just might avoid a night in the stew pot.

Cal