Tuesday Travel Tip: Make a Local Friend

When I settle into a new neighborhood for more than a few days, I make a local friend. This is generally facilitated by my ever-present need to buy a Diet Coke. The person pictured here is the daytime worker at a bodega where I often bought Diet Coke this summer.

I love having a local person to greet each day. Eventually we recognize each other and make small talk. Sometimes my local person even shares useful information about the neighborhood. Even if we never progress beyond a polite hello, having a person who is there every day grounds me in the local community. In this day and age when we can take our world with us where ever we go (and I love that!), I also like to connect to real humans in real places.
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Beware: Practice Makes Perfect

The thing about resolutions is that you have to remember to do them. One of the benefits of Leveraging Consistency is that over time the resolutions become habits. And after they become habits you start a journey toward excellence in that area, as I mentioned in my last post. But what about the habits that you just fell into, and didn't make a conscious choice to incorporate into your life? The consistency could actually be harming you. One example is my daily bottle of Diet Coke. I am honestly not sure when it became daily, but it is now. I no longer consider whether I need it or whether it is good for me, I just drink it. Although I know that it is not a true necessity, I treat it as such, always buying it the night before so that I have it ready for the next day. I'm sure that the fine folks at the Coca-Cola Company are thrilled about this habit of mine, shared by millions of people, but it really can't be good for any of us.

As with good habits, bad habits become intuitive. They become a part of us. We perform these habits on autopilot. It's time to become truly aware of negative habits and start to make conscious choices again. Some of the habits might be observable actions, but some might be internal. I coached someone recently who realized that every time someone didn't do what he wanted, he withdrew from the situation and became angry. He is ready to start trying other strategies, like talking to the other person or writing in a journal or trying to see it coming before he is angry and make a different choice. Those are the habits that are harder to break, but they are also the ones that make a lasting impact.

The Economics of Diet Coke

I am a fairly healthy eater, but I drink Diet Coke. Almost every day, I stop at a news stand in New York City to buy a 20 ounce bottle of Diet Coke. The owner of the news stand near my old apartment in Union Square considered me one of his best customers. When he told me the price was going up from $1.50 to $1.75 he said that I am such a good customer that I can have the special price of $1.50 for the rest of my life. This could be an amazing deal in, say, 40 years, but no doubt he figured into that pricing structure that if I drink Diet Coke heavily for the rest of my life, my life will be somewhat shorter than if I turn to healthier drinks.

So here I was, thinking $1.50 was a deal, especially since it was already $2.00 in tourist areas such as Times Square. However, over the course of ten weeks as an Urban Nomad, I bought 20 ounce bottles of Diet Coke in Chelsea, Park Slope, Washington Heights, the Upper West Side, Astoria, and Sunnyside. As it turns out, Diet Coke is even cheaper in the outer reaches of the city. Suddenly, $1.50 was not a deal. It's $1.25 in some areas! Before long, I was horrified at the thought of paying $1.50 for a Diet Coke. I was stocking up when I was in Washington Heights and carrying them with me to Midtown. All this over a quarter or two! It's a mini lesson in economics, a story of supply and demand. Sadly, I've become an expert on the cost of Diet Coke but I don't even know the value of my stocks. Better go check on that. But not until after I start on another bottle of Diet Coke.