Monday, April 7, 2008

Life is like a Bowl of Shredded Wheat!


I really prefer a cooked breakfast. You know eggs, toast, bacon, grits, or waffles or pancakes. My wife and my heart think otherwise. So at this late stage in my life I find myself eating more cereal.

I started off with Raisin Bran, then Cornflakes and finally settled on Shredded Wheat. Not the little ones and certainly not ones with anything on them. No, the Shredded Wheat I’m referring to looks like little bales of Hay.

In order to eat this cereal it’s necessary to break up the little hay bales into 4 or 5 sections. This cannot be done without fibers of Shredded Wheat shooting out of the bowl and going all over your kitchen. It’s True, I swear. It is impossible to eat this cereal without first cleaning it up off the kitchen counter and the floor. In spite of that, I love the stuff. Usually I put bananas in it or sometimes strawberries. It’s Great. It’s Delicious and it’s Messy. JUST LIKE LIFE!

Think about it. Life is truly delicious and most of us love it most of the time. I know there are those sad and unhappy places in our lives when life is painful; but if you’re honest with yourself you love life.

Life is Great, especially when you’re living in the moment and just enjoying being who you are where you are. When you give up worrying and wasting time on what you can’t do and concentrate on what you can do!

It can be as simple as replacing a landscape light along the driveway or as complex as erecting a module on the space station. As mundane as watching a great movie with your wife on the couch or as inspiring as watching the birth (no; participating in the birth) of your first child. As exciting as winning a drag race at the local strip or being beaten in a foot race with your son or daughter.

And ain’t life messy. All those things we have to do. All those people we have to meet, fall in love with, cherish, care for, fight with, and live our lives with. Jobs, Hobbies, duties, parents, kids, spouses, cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles. Man there is a whole bunch of messy stuff in our lives.

I bet the people with really messy lives are loving it. I know when we were younger there was a lot more messiness in our lives. At one point we had 5 kids in the house during their teenage years. It was really messy then. Yet today, when we’re talking with our kids about their kids we always seem to remember something from that very Messy time in our lives.

Enjoy your life as best you can. Make it as delicious as possible; you and your wife can make it great. Don’t worry about some crumbs on the counter of your existence. They’ll clean up OK. Understand the mess for what it is; a sign that you’re alive and living!

And when people want to use that old saying from Forrest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates." Tell em, no I think life is like a bowl of Shredded Wheat!

And then tell them why!


The Daily Husband