(39.40) Gourmet Peanuts

Gourmet Peanuts

Someone once gifted me a bag of “gourmet peanuts.”

I had never heard of peanuts being gourmet before, but after doing a quick Internet search, I discovered that many varieties of gourmet peanuts were available in the marketplace.

Nonetheless, my gift sat, unopened, in its beautiful packaging on a shelf in my pantry for a long time. Finally, one day I decided to pull the satin ribbon off the bag and try some of these epicurean legumes.

I read the loquacious verbiage on the wrapper, thinking how wonderful the description sounded. I was certain I was in for a delicious treat. I popped one of the large, beautifully chromatic nuts into my mouth.

I was excited at first. Then I was promptly disappointed.

I hated them.

They were dry and yucky. This can’t be, I thought.

I tried a few more. Still didn’t like them.

Bummer.

I threw the whole package out. For the rest of the day, I felt a little miffed.

I’m certain you’ve had experiences in your life where reality didn’t measure up to your expectations, and you were let down.

But that’s part of being human – expecting things and being disappointed when they don’t turn out the way we had hoped. Sometimes the cause of your dashed hopes is something as simple as peanuts. Other times, something much more devastating brings you down, and you cannot simply “throw out” your disappointment when it hits. Those are the times when we should reevaluate how we come to expect things in life.

(You got that this e-mail was scheduled to come out now, for the holidaze, right?)

This week’s spiritual-religious advice: be wary of your expectations.