Abbey sat there eating her turkey sandwich at the kitchen table, and seemingly content began commenting on all the things that she thought were “spicy”. Abbey’s reaction to “spicy” foods is always fun. She bristles when tasting it for the first time and appears to protest “That’s spicy!”, but soon after you often find her loving it. Except for the time she got ahold of a dallop of wasabi sauce – that wasn’t so fun – that was a few minutes of coughing and sputtering and guzzling water and realizing that she likely shouldn’t have grabbed the green stuff!
She loves to snatch the mints out of my purse. And these aren’t just any mints. These are the potent type of mints advertised as the kind that can get the job done when it comes to freshening your breath. It never fails however, I’ll be headed into a meeting and needing a mint for some anticipated close quarter conversation, reach inside my purse, pull out the container, and NOPE! Once again, the girl has gone and eaten all my mints. So, while I think she has a genuine initial reaction to all things “spicey”, I think she has also learned to overcome and even like things that have a little spice in them. After all this is the girl who’s full of lots of spunk and spice herself.
So, it made me giggle aloud when she proceeded to share this profound thought with me, “I’m sorry that mustard happens.”
She was clearly talking about the mustard in her sandwich, but I couldn’t help but respond back to her, “Yep sweetie, there’s allot of mustard that happens in this life!”.
Negative Reactions to the Spice of Life:
When people refer to the spice of life, they are often speaking of the variety in life that makes things more interesting. But in life, the spice of life can also be seen as a negative. It’s no fun when you’re doing just fine in life, and something comes along unexpectedly and messes everything up. It’s the unexpected additions to our life plans that can really get a reaction out of us. Whether you experience a change in jobs, a move, or an unexpected diagnosis, these things can feel like unwanted interruptions to our life. Like spicey mustard in a perfectly lovely turkey sandwich, or worse yet like that hot wasabi surprise, the experience can be beyond irritating and disruptive.
Positive Reactions to the Spice of Life:
On the other hand, the spice of life can be seen as a positive. There are times in life when something different or spontaneous happens and it seems to add color and beauty to our lives. Maybe you got to go on that dream vacation, maybe your child was able to engage in a new activity, or maybe you just got to enjoy a moment of sitting and looking at how the breeze blows the leaves of a tree. Like the addition of pumpkin and cinnamon spice seem to usher in the holiday feeling, an experience with this kind of spicey addition to life can bring on feelings of joy and celebration and enhance our lives.
Just as Abbey has grown and learned to tolerate or even like spicy things, so we too can learn to see the spice of life as something that whether a negative or positive addition can lead us to growth and can enhance our lives if we let it.
How about you? How have you reacted negatively to the unexpected things of life and how has your life been enhanced by them?
