I’m not a vegetarian but I have stopped buying meat. It was expensive and not particularly healthy. I use extra-firm tofu for everything, and ended up inventing all kinds of dishes that would never have existed without that restriction.

A lot of possibilities here.

That’s going on my list of favorite quotes

When I first switched to eating vegetarian, I simply substituted non-meat alternatives for the meat foods. I used to eat. Then I realized how ridiculous that is… eating vegetarian sausages and burgers? Come on

After that, I expanded my horizons and realized that eating vegetarian isn’t just a restricted subset of eating meat foods. It’s honestly DIFFERENT. Just like you say, Scott. I noticed new choices I never would have explored otherwise.

I think the link between creativity and restrictions is why people often leave assignments to the last minute. I found I could never start writing an essay until about 1 am of the day it was due in. The pressure of time often forces the best ideas to the front of the mind.

Unfortunately for my grades, this approach only produced quality essays when I had had plenty of time to read and think about the topic beforehand. The mind has to chew things over, digest, and sometimes spit things out.

I’m a Toastmaster too, and I find that my best speeches are those that have been rehearsed about a week before the event and then gone through a small but significant last-minute revision.

If there are any other Toastmasters reading this, I’d like to know how you prepare for speeches.

I’ve actually written about this before, you can do a search in the sidebar for “maximizers” and “simplifiers”. About two different strategies for creating a more interesting, productive life.

-Scott

The sentence, “Given the choice, people do what they did yesterday, not what’s best.”, is exactly true in my experience. That is a concise way to state that phenomenon and I hope to think of that sentence the next time I go to prove how true it is.