The Secrets Of Life In A Bowl Of Trail Mix

There's a simple, yet powerful, reason why I'm not picking stuff I don't like out of my trail mix.

When I eat trail mix, I snarff it down by the handful.

Which means I'm not sitting there picking out all the raisins or getting rid of the cranberries or flicking the Brazil nuts off to the side and hoping I can find someone sick enough to eat any of these bits of grossness. (Just as an example, you understand. With the exception of Brazil nuts, I love these things in my trail mix. Or on their own. Brazil nuts, though. . . Blech!)

I bring this up because there's a simple, yet powerful, reason why I'm not picking stuff I don't like out of my trail mix. It was while eating my trail mix that I had an epiphany about success in life. Which means my ah-ha moment became a teachable moment. Since Hyper Lad had to sit through it, I figured the rest of you might enjoy it as well. Although, oddly, I don't think Hyper Lad actually enjoyed my little teachable moment. (Possibly because I tend to have several an hour. There's nothing a dad likes more than having a teachable moment. It's just, as I understand it, most dads aren't as . . . enthusiastic . . . about the deal as I tend to be.)

The reason I'm not picking out stuff I don't like is that there isn't anything I dislike in my trail mix. Because I make my own. And when I'm putting it together, I make sure to include plenty of nuts and sweets and crunchies that I like and absolutely none that I don't. 

I've been making my trail mix for a while now and sending my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Fed Or Else, out to her exercise events with some of the trail mix as a snack. Being the kind, generous person she is to non-family members, she shared the trail mix with her friends. 

They all — each and every one — loved the trail mix. And wanted more. A lot more. So much more, in fact, that I ended up making trail mix as our Xmas gift for the neighbors and all our friends/acquaintences around town.

Everyone who tried the trail mix loved it. Because it had so much good stuff in it. They were, it seems, astonished that I could find a trail mix that had only the good stuff in it and none of the bad.

Each and every one of them has asked me repeatedly to make more. 

"All I do is take stuff I like and mix it all together," I tell them. "It's not that hard."

To which they respond by asking me again to make more. Not one of them seems to understand my larger point. It's not that I should sell my cobbled-together concoction, but that I'm not the only one capable of creating it.

If they want trail mix that has only stuff they like, they can make their own.

Hyper Lad even has his own trail mix at home. It contains peanuts and cashews, honey-roasted peanuts and cashews, caramel balls, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, M&M's and a few more bits and bobs. I made him some for Christmas. When he ran out, he asked me for more. I refused. I did, however, volunteer to let him drive me to the grocery store where I would happily pay for whatever he wanted to put in his next batch.

He took me up on it. We drove to the store, got the goodies and came back home. Once there, he got out all the stuff he wanted and began mixing it together. At the end, through a mouthful of nutty goodness, he mumbled his astonishment that it was that easy.

Which led to my teachable moment. In life, like in trail mix, you don't have to simply accept what you're given. You can always mix and match, change things to more suit the way you like to live. Don't just assume things are the way they are because they can never change. Don't wait for someone else to change things because the only way you can be assured of getting everything you want is for you to make the change you want to see in the world.

It reminds me of a story from two years ago. My wife, known to one and all as She Who Must Be Planning The Next Trip, and I had taken our three boys to Chicago for spring break. Our middle son, Zippy the Spanish-For-Now Boy, was and is in love with fast cars. When we stumbled on a supercar dealership while walking around the city, there was nothing for it but that we had to go in.

He was in nirvana. Even better, there was a stairway leading to even more cool cars upstairs. Unfortunately, the stairs were blocked by a barrier at the bottom. He was crestfallen because he couldn't go up.

"So," I asked him, "why not just ask if they'll let you go up?"

"No," he said. "They probably won't."

Despite a few go rounds of ask-no, he stuck his tongue out and decided he wasn't going up there because the manager probably wouldn't let him. At which point, I walked over to the manager and asked if my son could go upstairs to look at the cars. The manager looked at Ben, then laughed and waved him up the stairs, saying he couldn't say no to those puppy-dog eyes.

The lesson being. . . It never hurts to ask.

I asked, is it possible for me to make my own trail mix with only stuff I like? It was.

I asked, is it possible to rearrange stuff in my life so I enjoy it more? It is.

Can you stay-at-home dudes do it also? You can.

It's a great lesson to model for your young spawn. And, of course, it's also got the added benefit of making your life pretty great as well.

So, go on. Make your own trail mix, yeah? 

The only one getting in the way is you. Get out of your own way and get crackin' on the best possible life mix.