The Sweeter Side of Gaining Wisdom

My wife has a fondness for Dove Dark Chocolate candy. Each piece is individually wrapped in deep red foil and imprinted in gold letters. A day or two ago, as I was scarfing down one of her pieces of Dove candy, after I put the chocolate into my mouth, I was about to wad up the foil wrapper and throw it into the trash.

She stopped me from doing that. "Look inside the foil, " she said to me.

I looked at her skeptically. "Why?" I asked her.

"Just do it," she insisted.

So I turned the wrapper over and in the center of the inside of the wrapper it read: "Sing along with the music."

"You see," she told me, feeling vindicated.

I looked at the back of her wrapper. Another pearl of wisdom: "Follow your instincts."

I retrieved a third wrapper thrown onto the kitchen counter and sought out its message: "Discover yourself."

Wow. Hidden amidst the chocolate was something almost as delicious and sweet. But you have to sort of know that it is there. In itself, the wrapper is just a square of aluminum. But by hiding the secret message on the back side, that changes things. Now each wrapper becomes a treasure with a hidden message.

You just have to know where to look. Now I do. And now so do you. So the next time you are about to toss the aluminum cover of the dark chocolate from Dove, restrain yourself for just a moment. Carefully turn over the wrapper to find what bit of encouragement or bits of conventional wisdom and ethics you will find there. News you can use as you try to figure out how to navigate your way through life successfully.

Who would have thought you would find that kind of insight and wisdom in such a random place. But, hey, it is a good thing to become a little more savvy about what it takes to successfully get through life. I will take that sort of wisdom any way I can get it. And to be able to get a piece of really good chocolate as a perk... folks, that's a real deal.