Sometimes the cookie has to crumble . . .

Way back in my grade school years, my family took a glorious trip to Fort Worth. It was something school-related, involving my brother Carl’s extracurricular activities. But it was a glorious trip for me because I was allowed to miss school.

Adding to the excitement was our good fortune to stay with friends of my parents who lived in Fort Worth. Their youngest daughter was one year older and I thought of her as more of a cousin. We had great times together.

On this particular trip, I remember sitting in the middle of their living room floor playing some board game. My friend’s mom was baking cookies. Normally, smelling those cookies would be true bliss for me. Unfortunately, I developed a tremendous, sickening headache. And the smell of those cookies became forever attached to memories of the pain I was feeling.

Now, I’m not sure what kind of cookies were being baked. For whatever reason, I have associated macadamia nut cookies with that ugly experience. So through the years, I have avoided macadamia nut cookies. A few years ago, in a moment of adult rationality and at the urging of others who claimed that the macadamia nut cookie was at the height of pastry evolution, I tried one. The morsel was barely in my mouth before the nightmare of memories returned. I was back in that living room, smelling those cookies . . . head throbbing, nauseated, miserable.

Earlier this year, in an effort to be healthy, I purchased a can of mixed nuts “specifically formulated” to provide high protein and great satisfaction. I grabbed the can off the shelf, seeing the almonds and the cashews. After I got to my office, however, I noticed that the third entree was the much-touted macadamia.

I avoided those little round pieces for quite a while. Inevitably, I grabbed one by mistake. It wasn’t heaven on earth, but it was pretty close to paradise. For the first time, I understood what all the macadamiaphiles had been preaching. What a glorious taste sensation! And to think that all of these years I was robbed of that because of some relatively insignificant baked dough surrounding this little jewel.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are like macadamia nut cookies. I see the lumpy stuff that surrounds them and that often hides what is inside. And I avoid those people. Sadly, sometimes I even vilify them.

Yet, in a special moment, I’m given the opportunity to see them “outside the cookie.” And I discover the true value of them as people.

If you struggle from time to time with your feeling toward others like I do, you might want to think about brushing past the cookie to get to what’s truly inside.

If the shoe fits . . .

Last night, a new acquaintance began telling me about his recent experience buying sandles. He walked into a store last week, found a pair that he liked, and then asked the clerk to bring him a size 10-and-a-half and a size 11. He explained that his shoe size was 11 but that his experience with sandles was that they are often a little bigger than the size professes.

The clerk returned with two pair — sizes 10 and 11. “We don’t have half-sizes,” he reported. My new friend tried on the 10 “just because it was there” and was amazed when it fit perfectly. Curious, when the clerk left to ring up his purchase, he grabbed the contraption that gauges feet and found, indeed, his foot measured a size 10.

“I have a closet full of size 11 shoes,” he told me, “and now I’ve discovered that I’ve been buying the wrong size — most of my life!”

While I found the story interesting, I didn’t have a clue of his rationale for telling it. Until he added, “I’ve learned a lot through this experience. It seems that I’m quite capable of limping through life with the assistance of things that don’t really work. Now, I’m on the lookout for things that fit me and giving things a chance that I’ve refused to even consider. The future seems much brighter now.”

Openness to doing things differently — thinking, talking, listening — does tend to brighten up the future. Try on a different size shoe today. Particularly if its well-worn by someone else. You might discover some new possibilities.

Diving for Pearls

Recent life experience is taking me places. All sorts of places. Frankly, if you had told me two months ago about the journey I was about to take, I would have canceled my ticket.

Now that I’m down the road a bit, I have a different view. I have been enriched by the things I’ve seen, the emotions I’ve felt, and the words I’ve heard. All of those good things sprout from a central source — the people I’ve met.

Two months ago, I would have avoided most of these individuals. Nothing personal. I just thought I had no need to know them and no real curiosity about who they might be, where they might live, or how much we might have in common.

Last week, sitting in a crowded room with total strangers, I begin to see how their lives threaded through mine. My eyes were opened.

Amazing things happen when we begin to see the value of someone else, regardless their circumstance.