How hard are you willing to look?

You can’t find something. You have lots of options.

Do you:

1. Give up.
2. Try again later.
3. Keep going.
4. Ask someone else.
5. Hold on like ann alligator.

It depends on how much you want it.

It’s a shoelace? You can buy another. It’s your grandmother’s wedding ring. You’re at #5 and looking to make a #6. What about the stuff in the middle? Where do you land for everyday stuff? Do you give up easily? What do others think of you in this regard? You might think, “I don’t care what others think of me.” But I’m thinking of employers or colleagues.

We had an excellent exercise in MBA to evaluate a fellow student based on if you would hire them for your company or not. Frienship wasn’t high on the list.

Are you going to find what you’re looking for? Sure, an old sock you can live without. But what about something you really want? How determined are you?

There’s a photo of tea below. It’s not just any tea. It’s the tea that they use in Thai restaurants to make Thai Iced Tea. It took me months to find. Hey, maybe I’m just slow. I finally found it in the dessert section of a Chinese supermarket in San Francisco. No one spoke (much) English in the shop and I couldn’t get anyone to understand what I was saying until finally someone pointed me to the dessert section. I almost didn’t get as she obviously wasn’t understanding me, but then I thought that maybe what she lead me to what was I was looking for. I brought it home and tried it and I have rationed that one-pound bag for over a year.

Now it’s going on empty.

We no longer live in San Francisco. They don’t have as many Chinese supermarkets here. I finally “gave in” and turned to Amazon. I even had to go to Amazon US. But I found it. Based on the name and style of packaging, I found it.

It’s just a silly example, but a telling one. I don’t give up. Do you?