Something I love to nibble on are cashew nuts! My children and my wife know I love the dry fruit and every once in a while, present me a packet of the same, and for me it is like heaven those few days before I finish them all off. I relish each nut as I chew on them, and very often hear my wife looking at the empty packet and exclaiming, “Bob, don’t eat so much you won’t eat your dinner!”
But then I know the next packet may take awhile in coming and I can’t help enjoying each of them!
But this Christmas nearly everybody decided to gift me with the same cashew nuts.
So suddenly I had plenty of packets filled with the delicious nuts all lying waiting for me to eat. Well I did share a few nuts, not packets, with the rest of my family, but decided to keep the rest near my bed and eat them all day long, one after the other and sometimes many at a time!
Today, I am fed up of cashew-nuts!
There are still some packets left, sent by my daughter from New York, and I can see them looking at me and saying, “Hey Bob, why aren’t you having us?”
The reason is that I’ve had too much of a good thing.
Now I’m looking for something better than cashew nuts. Something that will give my taste buds more excitement. Some new taste. New happiness.
But as I think back, I realize that if I had spaced my cashew packets, if I had eaten them, maybe, just one packet a week, I would still be enjoying them.
What I didn’t do was to balance my excitement with the ordinary!
A lesson for life, I think: How often we go on holidays, book a room with a sea view and wish we could live there all our life.
Just think, how boring it would be after sometime. But the danger is not the boringness, but that we will start seeking other pleasures to keep the excitement going.
We all love to have a drink sometimes. We have one drink, two drinks, and instead of stopping, our mind and body crave for more, and we end up getting drunk. If we had only taught ourselves to enjoy a little and stop, then life would be good.
The same with anything; after marriage we go on a honeymoon, but can we expect everyday of the rest of our lives with our spouses to be a honeymoon? How boring it would then become. And then we start craving for other excitement!
Start enjoying the ordinary. Start enjoying your work. Your normal evening with your family at home, and then how much more beautiful will be those periods of excitement you give yourself!
Meanwhile my cashew packets look at me, waiting for me to start liking the ordinary again..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
