Broken Chips

Pringles are probably one of my most favorite guilty pleasures to pair with a packed lunch. I left my lunch in my car one cold winter day and made a trip back to the lot to grab it. I often will do these quick trips without a coat as I am sometimes annoyed by the extra 10 seconds it takes for me to put it on. As my walk started, I thought, "it's not so bad out here. I didn't need that coat." Then about half way to my car, I began to regret that decision.

I picked up the pace a bit, made it to my car to grab the Target bag I placed my lunch in that morning. Because I didn't have my coat, I prioritized keeping my hands warm for the trip back which led me to scrunch the bag up so that I could walk while keeping my hands in my pocket and not have this bag daggling like a pocket watch. What this left me with was a bag of broken Pringles chips.

As I sat down to eat my lunch, I was brainstorming on how I would go about eating these flakes of Pringles. Should I put them in a small cup and drink them as a crunchy room temperature accompaniment to the main dish. Should I try a spoon? What I ended up doing is just pinching them and popping them in my mouth much like I used to do in my youth on the rare occasion I was able to score a bag of Big League Chew. Still savory and full of flavor, my sour cream and cheddar Pringles brought me just as much joy as they always had. As I was enjoying them, I thought to myself, "broken chips? Huh. That's a lot like me. That's a lot like most of us."

If you are living a life of meaning, it almost guarantees that you are not that perfectly shaped hyperbolic paraboloid that you started out as. The failures, disappointments, and setbacks you have endured along the way may have very well chipped away at your own confidence and sense of worth. When you first began to feel that diminishing joy and confidence, this can be a very isolating feeling leaving many of us feeling like we are the only ones who feel this way. If you are doing anything of significance, you will feel stressed. At times, you'll even feel like you've blown it. You'll feel like busted old bag of broken potato chips. And, you will most likely feel alone.

We are all a bag of broken chips. It means we dared to dream, to challenge ourselves, to strive for achievements we may have had no business even dreaming about let alone making a real attempt at. We were and are the warriors in the arena and putting ourselves out there means we have volunteered for a few scars, for a few nicks, for the ridicule, for the pressure, for the “I told you so's” that come with wanting to live a life of significance. Each challenge, each set back, each disappointment, and each failure chips away at us and sometimes we do reach this unrecognizable state compared to who we were when we began. But we never lose our flavor. We never lose our spice. We never lose our fight because even though we look different, act different, are different, we still are perfectly positioned to bring into a cold dark world every bit of joy, light and hope as we were always intended to.

So, march on you weary, dusty, broken old bag of chips and enjoy every crumble of what life still has to offer.