Press the easy button when you can

The easy way may actually be the best way

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that there is nothing wrong with pressing the
easy button when you have the opportunity. Solutions aren't always

(00:25):
better just because they are hard. Figure out lots of
easy buttons in life, and you just might have more
mental space for what really matters. Before Breakfast listeners of
a certain age may remember the ad campaign from the
office supply store Staples. A small red button labeled easy

(00:47):
miraculously solved all kinds of challenges, from pens that run
out of ink, to hardmouth problems to changing twin babies diapers.
At the same time. The idea, of course, was that
Staples made getting office supplies is easy pressing a button.
The fantasy of having an easy button was so powerful
that Staples even started selling an easy button desk toy. Now,

(01:09):
I'm pretty sure that the desk toy will not solve
any problems for you, but you can find all kinds
of metaphorical easy buttons in life. Weeknight dinners can be
pasta one night Taco's, another make your own pizza breakfast
for dinner, and a store bought rotisserie chicken with a

(01:29):
bagged salad. Brilliant. I just mail planned for an entire
week for you. If you want variety, you can cook
elaborate meals on the weekends and then maybe have the
leftovers as a dinner in the middle of the week.
Or do you take out some night you have pressed
the easy button and still had a satisfying string of dinners.

(01:51):
You can choose a kind of wine you like and
always bring that as a hostess gift. Seriously, just order
a dozen bottles, and if you get invited to more
parties than that in a year, I'm thrilled for you,
but most of us probably won't be, so it will
all work out. Cash can be a very easy gift

(02:11):
for a wide variety of occasions, and for a solid
percentage of those occasions, the person will prefer cash to
whatever you might have picked out, So go ahead and
press the easy button. If it's going to be appropriate
for my female listeners. A simple black dress can be
your easy button outfit for any event. Unless you are

(02:32):
the sort of person who is frequently photographed for the tabloids,
no one is going to notice that you are wearing
the same thing on more than one occasion. If you
are supposed to bring a homemade dessert somewhere, bring slice
and baked cookies. They worked us fine. Have a go
to karaoke song Paint Walls and Benjamin Moore White Dove

(02:57):
have a restaurant you always suggest to visiting out of
town guests. I believe that part of adulting is knowing
about a certain number of easy buttons and availing yourself
of them whenever the situation permits. When we are young,
we often think that everyone is watching and judging us,
and so we need to impress people with our command

(03:19):
of a wide variety of things, places, outfits, meals. Then
you get older and realize no one is noticing. Indeed,
people tend to be happier with surefire hits than with
experimentation that can go awry. At six o'clock on Tuesday,

(03:39):
your crew is going to be happier with pasta than
with some elaborate new seafood dish that your gourmet magazine
said was amazing. Maybe it is, but you can find
that out when you make it on Saturday. On Tuesday,
press the easy button. I don't like the phrase taking

(04:01):
the easy way out because it's pejorative. In many cases,
the easy way is not only fine, it might be
preferable to something harder. Save your time and energy for
situations where it matters or might truly improve things. With
most other things, pressing the easy button is perfectly fine.

(04:24):
In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,

(04:45):
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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