They were roughly the same height standing together in the pen holder, yet one stood out. It was a shiny black pen with a white star on the end, it was far more attractive than the well worn home brand pen.

Its owner held the Mont Blanc pen with pride and used it almost exclusively since he bought it six months ago. The ball point flowed smoothly across the yellow legal pad, writing ‘to do’ lists, taking meeting notes and drafting letters.
When he went to visit clients the pen was either conspicuously sitting in his shirt pocket or tucked in the pen holder of his notes folder.

The owner, realising ten ink level in his pen would run out at some point visited the pen shop to buy s refill. While there he also bought a refill for the home brand pen as it had already run out of ink.

When he got home that evening, the owner decided to replace the pens cartridges of both pens. As he did so he noticed that they were identical except for the brand name…and the price. He reassembled both pens and placed the he brand pen in the pen holder and the Mont Blanc pen inside his notes folder.

The telephone rang so the owner grabbed the home brand pen to write down the caller’s details and a message. He still liked the weight and feel of the old pen and was surprised at how well the new refill wrote.

A week or so later the owner was again in a meeting, frantically taking notes and quietly cursing the Mont Blanc pen which had felt scratchy on the paper ever since he replaced the cartridge.

When he was siting at his desk later that evening he picked up the old pen and began to write, smiling a he realised that while the old pen cost a fraction of the price of the new one, it was reliable. The outward appearance of the shiny pen didn’t give any indication of how well it would write. He wondered why he had persisted with the new pen since replacing the refill. Maybe he thought it would improve its performance if he persisted with it. How many other things have I persisted with because they were shiny, he thought to himself as he put the home brand pen in his writing folder and the shiny black one in the pen holder.

I wonder the same thing about times I have taken too long to make a change to something I have been doing just because I thought a new way would be better, when the way I had been doing something for quite a long time was still the best way I knew.