Way back in middle school my friend Ethan faced a really challenging problem. See Ethan’s mom had a membership to Sam’s Club, and always did the shopping for the family. Well, one day his mom went to Sam’s club and purchased a huge 1 gallon jug of peanut butter for the family. The problem was it was CREAMY peanut butter and Ethan (like many people) hated creamy peanut butter.
Ethan voices his displeasure with the creamy peanut butter purchase
Ethan being really displeased with the purchase let his mother know that he wasn’t about to eat that creamy peanut butter and asked his mother to get him chunky Peanut Butter instead. Well, after Ethan’s mom just bought a gallon of creamy peanut butter, she was not about to go buy MORE peanut butter.
Faced with this problem Ethan could have done many things…he could have refused to eat the peanut butter until his mom corrected the problem, he could have sabotaged the peanut butter, and he could have gone out and bought chunky peanut butter himself. None of these solutions would have made both him AND his mom happy.
So what did Ethan do?
Ethan was smart enough to think outside the box and come up with a solution to the problem that made both him and his mom happy. He was able to stick to his principles and not eat creamy peanut butter, and make his mom happy by not wasting all that peanut butter…Ethan bought peanuts to convert the creamy peanut butter to chunky peanut butter. Ethan ran to the store, picked up a pound of peanuts, crushed them up, and fixed the peanut butter.
So the next time life gives you creamy peanut butter, be like Ethan and make it chunky.
