One of my favourite movies is Forrest Gump. In this movie there is a very well known phrase which many of us would have heard from many of our friends and family members. The phrase goes like this "Mama always said: Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." - Forrest Gump. I always loved this quote, and it always made me smile and think about life. I thought how easy it would be if life was like a box of chocolates. If so, what chocolate would it be like. My all time favourite Cadburys fruit and nut or my second favourite Ferrero Rocher or Lindt. Well, we can only think these thoughts and live in a dream world or in a movie world.
Sadly, as we grow older and mature, we learn that life is not a box of chocolates. Life is filled with ups and downs. It is filled with joys and sorrows, and it is filled with pain, stress, anxiety, joys, sorrows and all sorts of feelings and emotions. It is like a roller coaster ride where we do not know whether we are going to enjoy it until we experience it. It could take us to the heights and then we could be in the lowest of ebbs where we are frightened and worried about things in life. But all these experiences make us who we are. It can either make us or break us. We can live life to the fullest and enjoy it will all the upheavals that we face, or we can just let life dictate how to live by giving in to anxiety and depression and let it break us.
Life is a gift and its up to us to either enjoy it like a box of chocolates or destroy it by moaning and groaning and not enjoying anything that happens. I love chocolates, but at the same time I am fussy and choosy about what chocolates I will eat. So, every time my husband Julian asks me to try something new, I’m very weary and do hesitate. But still, I do try it as only if I try it, I will know whether I like it or not.
Life in many ways is like that, only if you open the wrapper of a chocolate and try it you will know whether you like it or not. Similarly, only if you peel the layers that surround us, we will know whether we like what we are doing, what we are seeing and what we are doing. Life is very complex, but we need to learn to love it with all its quirks. Chocolates come in different types of sizes, shapes and colours. If we do not like a particular chocolate we move on, but we would have at least tried it. Similarly, it is up to us to take the driver seat in our journey and shape it the way we want it to be and cherish all the moments that life gives us.
Life is filled with surprises and it’s up to us to make it something memorable and to be treasured. God has given each one of us a life to be treasured and cherished it’s up to us as to what we do with it.