The Parable Of The Grape & The Fork

I love food and I love life.

Food is never confusing and life is. 

So I have created a parable from what I discovered while eating lunch and my life. 

You see that grape... yes it's on my fork. This is a difficult task.

 Get a bunch of grapes covered in ranch and stab away.

(Your assignment if you want to really relate.)

It's not an easy thing. 

So here I am sitting alone at my kitchen counter, feet up on a broken stool, listening to some Michael Buble & Soulja Boy (great combination). No big deal, just the daily happenings and thoughts cycling through the mind. All of a sudden, without realizing, I ate all my ham and noodles and spinach salad, leaving... all these slimy ranch-covered grapes on my glass plate. Uh oh............... I normally use the ham and noodles to corner those grapes. What to do?

Next thing I know I'm chasing my grape around and around and around and around and around the plate. It's NOT working!!!! AH. GRAPE, GET ON MY FORK, RIGHT NOW! I would get it in a still spot and I'd STAB down as fast as I could. I jabbed it from the left, I forcefully poked from the right... I even tried to quickly scoop it up! Nothing.

I wasn't about to put my hands on that grape because then I'd have to get up, get a paper towel, throw away the paper towel, sit back down. WAY too much effort. And I wasn't about to be defeated by a small grape. 

After much thought and stabbing trials, I came out of la-la land. I wasn't spacing or absentmindedly trying to get the grapes. I really wanted the delicious little purple on my fork. I slowly slid my fork through the top of my grape. And there it is! I finally got what I wanted.

"Lauren, how does this relate to life?" you may ask.

Well, I'm so busy stabbing at the next things I want, that I end up missing it completely. 

I stab and miss, stab and miss, stab and miss.

These are just life's trials, experiences & mistakes coming into play.

I head into something & then I end up unhappy, so fast. 

I do things without thinking of how it'll affect someone else.

It's foolish of me. 

There's so much emotion in the stabbing method, that it's just me reacting to the last thing I was upset about and it needs to be more of clear, conscious reasoning. 

I keep moving from one thing to the next without a pause to really see how I'm going to accomplish my final outcome- the un-punctured grape on my fork.

The moral of the story: think about it and work slowly to get it strategically. It may appear to take more time, but it will actually save energy and disappointment.

My ranch covered grape:

Graduate College 

Be a  Special Education teacher (Preschool)

Marry in the Temple

Have a family

Grow old in LOVE <3

Return to my Heavenly Father

I'm not saying "don't have fun, focus only on your future." HECK NO. Live it up, baby. These "stabs" are about the big decisions of life.

Lauren, stop taking stabs at temporary satisfaction and focus on the true goals. Those are examples of my long-term grapes... the one I have to get a REALLY BIG fork for. The small-weeny grapes I have to also focus on are day-to-day, being a good friend, listening in class, staying in touch with my family, being happy. :)