Stuff I Learned Yesterday

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It takes only a small gesture to positively influence your own or someone else’s life – just changing your hot cocoa mug to a different color can make your enjoyment of an already delicious beverage even sweeter. Well, during a very normal conversation in my car recently, something equally small really made me stop and think.

It was early afternoon on a Thursday. I had just picked up my daughter, Lila, who’s in second grade, from her elementary school, and as we often do on our drive home, we were talking about the highlights of the day. In between all the discussions of the fun she had in technology class and what games she played during recess, Lila announced with a great amount of enthusiasm, “Mom put a raspberry in with my blackberries in my lunchbox!”

Now my wife is always very careful to pack Lila nutritious things in her lunch, but the fruits are pretty much interchangeable depending on what’s seasonal and available at the grocery store. Lila enjoys raspberries and blackberries equally; in fact, blackberries might have a slight edge in her order of fruit preferences. So why would one red raspberry sitting atop her container of blackberries cause such a moment of happiness? Read more…