Chocolate Tomatoes & How We Rarely Enjoy Opposing Realities

Sweet One-hundred, Sun Sugar and Chocolate Cherry tomatoes

It’s rare you can eat chocolate and simultaneously get a serving of fruit/vegetables. However, these brownish-purple tomatoes live up to their name Chocolate Cherry.

My mouth watered as I picked them, but I had nagging unease. The pansies bordering my little garden needed deadheading. I’d already spent ten minutes picking the lettuce and another ten minutes picking the raspberries. My precious early morning was slipping away and I wanted to be at my computer writing. I also wanted to be relaxing on my porch with a cup of coffee.

Feeling my unease, I paused. Let the realization sink in. I couldn’t enjoy all of these things at the same time, and I didn’t need to harken back to high school economics to understand opportunity cost. Part of accepting adulthood is understanding we have to make tough choices.

When we don’t choose–when we try to enjoy two opposing realities–we’re never at ease. We’re stressed. We complain. We make ourselves miserable, and I dare say those around us miserable, too.

Another example…getting frustrated because I expected my manuscript back from my editor last week and who knows when it’ll arrive?  I made the choice to be a writer and to enter into a publishing agreement. At the time, I knew publishing can be agonizingly slow. I knew I wouldn’t have control over the schedule as my book progressed through editing and design. I chose one and not the other.  I can’t enjoy both. And as long as I don’t accept that, I won’t be at ease. I’ll be stressed. I’ll be miserable…you get the picture.

So I popped one those chocolates in my mouth and I remembered the choice I’d made to plant my garden and care for it. Did I want to change my mind now?  I’m free to let the garden go and sit on  my porch and drink coffee. Do I want to be a writer with a book coming out with a respected publisher? Or do I want to control over my schedule?

Everyday, these choices lie before us. Large and small. If we don’t look at the opportunity cost fair and square and choose the price we’re willing to pay–we’re choosing misery over happiness.


Do you think this is true? Or a bunch of bunk? I'd love to know what you think. Go ahead and leave a comment.