The Guayaba I will Never Forget- An Anecdote

Back home during my childhood and teenage years much of our daily chores involved chores outside, including mowing the lawn, watering the plants, trimming the trees, digging trenches, etc. Anyways, in this particular instance mom had asked me to go water the plants outside which included the pink guayaba tree. Now this tree was special since the fruit this tree gave was the pink guayaba instead of the more common white guayaba.

As I sat next to the tree during the twilight hours of the afternoon waiting for the tree's water basin to fill I noticed a particularly large guayaba hidden among the branches. I must say I was pretty impressed with its perfection, but I still wasn't satisfied with its size, so I left it another day. Three days later I was sent to water the tree again, for you see I lived in the desert and we watered our plants very frequently, and I immediately looked for my guayaba. Boy was I proud of it! I felt that every time I watered the tree I had personal investment in that fruit. In fact, I think that tree knew I was eying that guayaba and it rewarded my patience by making it just a little bit larger. So what did I do? You guessed! I left it another day. I wanted to see exactly how big this guayaba could get. Two days passed and everytime I walked past that tree I knew that that tree was working its magic with my fruit. The following week mom sent me to water the tree once again, however this time I went with the intent of picking my prized guayaba. I figured that no matter how large it was, more than 10 days had passed since I first spotted it and would have been be ripe by then. Well of course to my surprise I found my guayaba... with a giant hole in it! As things turned out, a bird was also eying that fruit, however unlike me the bird did not discriminate the fruit based on its size, it did not wait "one more day" in order to it to grow, instead, it felt hungry, saw the opportunity and took it.

There were lessons I learned that day. The bird did not assume it would live tomorrow to see the fruit grow a little bit larger so why do we pretend we will? Don't necessarily live like everyday is going to be your last day and use this as an excuse to take actions without consideration for others. Instead, assume you won't live to see that fruit grow one more day and appreciate it today. Show your appreciation to those around you and how much they matter to you. God forbid they become that guayaba with a hole in it leaving you unable to appreciate their flavor.