Just before summer of 2014, I started eating grapefruit, again. I say again because prior to this, I only had it at home, where it was always pre-cut or squeezed as juice to drink. It pained me when I cut this one particular grapefruit and saw that I went too far in and cut fruit away with the skin. Ironically I paired this “mistake” with some of my favorite glitter letters and wrote “JOY.” I shared a pic I took with my phone on Instagram and it made people happy and that was a great outcome! Cutting grapefruit is a lot of effort and a lot of times, real little fruit. In a single sitting I can eat something twice as fast as it took me to cut out all the spears. BUT, I will STILL do it. In a lot of things, you work hard and you reap benefits. In this case, I get to enjoy the fruit of my labor but sometimes you never will.
There have been a few times this year that I felt I worked really hard on something and didn’t get the recognition or fulfillment I thought I would feel at the end of the project. I wasn’t able to enjoy the fruit. Instead, I felt like something was lost or missing throughout the process. This feeling, often coming out of stress and frustration, is unenjoyable. There is no point in complaining to someone (but it might be okay if you keep it to a minimum). Instead, I am learned to try to stay positive. To really look at the bright side or how these stressful, less-exciting experiences can help me learn for next time. Everything has a lesson embedded into it and it’s our job to listen and learn from one of our first teachers–ourselves. Although not everything can be perfect, I do want to see the JOY in the good, the bad and the great-fruit.
