A National Park Ranger once told me his biggest problem is hikers blazing their own trails. The new trails are not to explore unopened country, but rather to create shortcuts. Thousands of people go to great lengths of time, effort and money, only to make their hikes as short as possible.
There is a reason people cut corners- it's the shortest path in the near term, the less expensive, and involves the least amount of physical or emotional pain. We're wired to avoid the difficult and gravitate towards the easy.
But the easy is usually expensive in the long-term. Rework, replacement materials, being unprepared physically and emotionally, lacking the right tool for a job- all of these are symptoms of an earlier shortcut.
Resisting the shortcuts is sometimes the biggest success of your day because of the rewards they yield in the future.
Peter
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