Slippery Grip: I’m trying hard to have willpower at Easter

There are times in your life when you know you should say no. It’s not a big word or a 4 letter one, but sometimes it is the hardest thing to say.

Take Easter for eggsample (I just had to put that one in). Ask a 5-year-old what Easter is about and the answer is somewhere between rabbits and chocolate. Never mind the raging debate on pagan versus Christian. But for me it is about willpower.

Chocolate eggs tempt me, cute Cadbury rabbits wink in my direction and I try not to think about hot cross buns.

Some people have no problem. They are so high on the horse they couldn’t reach the mini eggs if they were bent double. “Oh, I don’t eat chocolate”. I have nothing but pity for them ’cause they don’t know what they’re missing.

Others are closet eaters – “I only buy them for the kids”. What goes in the shopping trolley and what eventually ends up under a bush on Sunday could keep an accountant in knots for weeks.

Then there are those who try to limit the egg-fest. We linger over the price. We weigh up the value. We size up what will fit in the fridge, and then we dither. Bilby or rabbit. White or dark. Full of Smarties or empty. The choices of hot cross buns are just a daunting. Fruit or not? Chocolate drops? Chocolatey buns or traditional? It is a minefield.

Easter is fraught with temptations and so I suggested if only the supermarket could keep all the good things behind a screen. Admittance by willpower red liners only. Those brave souls that can take it or leave it.

A simple questionnaire should sort out where one stands in the willpower ranking.

Can you say no?

But if you ask me, no has such a finality about it. No doesn’t leave any room for compromise or creme eggs. What is needed is a more subtle approach to the chocolate debate for those of us who not only want to, and probably will, albeit one Ferrero Rocher at a time.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be willpower, but wontpower.

Won’t you have another? Don’t mind if I do.

Share your thoughts below.