Avocados

I was watching an episode of "Good Eats" a while ago about Avocados. It was quite interesting. Did you know that the word "avocado" is based on "abogado," the Spanish word for "lawyer," but only because it was as close as the Spaniards could come to correctly pronouncing the native name for the fruit, which actually translates to "testicle?" I digress.

One of the most interesting things I learned in this show about the Avocado was that avocados don't ripen on the tree. They have to be picked and then they have to sit around and then they're fully mature. This kind of struck me in an Institute lesson about maturity and preparedness and such. We don't come out of college or grad school or whatever other "preparatory phase" completely "finished." It takes awhile for us to "ripen" into whomever we're supposed to become.

Anyone who has spoken to me in the past few months knows that I feel like I've been sitting on the shelf rather than being used for my "intended purpose" (whatever that may be). Despite all this, I feel like I've become rather "zen" about the whole thing, that I've learned a lot, and that I've really grown and matured as a person.

In other words, I think I'm ready to be guacamole.