Self Control
I've been watching as a favorite shop closes up and sells off it's remaining stock. There was this one rod... a TFO BVK 5wt to be specific. I cast one a couple of years ago at the Louisville show and fell in love (darn you Jack Hise). Well, fast forward... the aforementioned shop has one and I have picked up it's buttery goodness no less than a dozen times and just grinned at the wife, knowing I could neither justify the purchase nor afford it on my allowance. (Self imposed.) A month ago I noticed it had been deeply discounted from $289 to $159. WOW-EE! Trouble is, I recently decided to knuckle down and replace the nearly bald tires on my pickup, rack up several hundred dollars in medical bills (from 6 months ago that just showed up with a notice that they were due in a week!) Oh, and I thought it would be good to lock down the old credit card and finally pay it off. (It has hovered at $750 for years.) So needless to say, the rod is out of the question. We make near-weekly trips that bring us in close proximity to the shop, so the itch to check and see if the price has dropped further can be scratched often. I hadn't been there in over 2 weeks and I had come to the point that I was actually hoping it had sold so I could quit tormenting myself. The wife and I stopped in last evening and much to my dismay, not only had it not sold, now there were two! Self control is so difficult.
Separate your observations from your preconceptions. See what is, not what you expect.