Tethered Warrior (c) Bloomsations and More

I knew the item wasn’t good enough to sell but I gave it to her anyway…sort of.  I had donated a photographic print for an office party as a way of promoting Bloomsations and More, my photography business.  The winner chose this image of a Bald Eagle as their prize and as I was working on the framing, I noticed marks on the matting.

Had I been entering it in a juried photo competition or trying to sell it at a craft fair, a trip to the photography supply store for a new mat would have been in order, and I knew it.  It wasn’t a questionable flaw in my mind, yet I started rationalizing away the right thing to do.  After all, it was free.

In thinking about this situation, what grabs my attention most is realizing how easily I could allow something to move me away from my own chosen course of behavior.  I had a business standard, based on certain beliefs, that I was willing to toss aside with hardly a second thought.  Could this be something mankind faces universally?  Has anything like it ever happened to you?

Annette received her prize on time as promised and was thrilled with the image.  I let her know I’d be changing out the mat and a couple of days later, all was done.  She was ecstatic, while I was left to wonder if she would have recognized the difference if I hadn’t changed the matting, and more importantly, why I had ever considered such an outcome.