I Recommend Raspberries

I recommend Raspberries.  No, not the kind that you can get at the store.  The kind that grow in your backyard (or perhaps, a friend’s backyard), taste best when eaten straight off the cane (warm from the sun) and can be enjoyed for a few short weeks in July before they’re gone for another year.  You can freeze them and enjoy them in baked goods, on cereal, or remember a little frozen bit of summer, but it’s not quite the same.

Make hay while the sun shines

This old saying really hits home when you’re considering picking a perishable fruit or identifying an activity that you can only do for certain times during the year.  It’s really important in July when it’s hot outside and the berries are ripe … to pick the berries then.  Because you can get a poor facsimile of that thing from the supermarket almost any time of the year, but it’s a bland, hybridized, picked-to-be-shelf-stable version of that raspberry that you could have had from your garden, and the time to pick it is … now.

Do your work, but don’t be your work (unless you want to be)

I work in a business where I could be working at almost any hour of the day, any day of the week, and I enjoy that freedom.  I also need to remember that there are only certain times of the year when I could be picking raspberries, and that if I miss that opportunity, I won’t get that experience for a whole other year.  You can always still support your team and your responsibilities and stop what you’re doing to take a walk outside and pick raspberries.  You might lose some sleep later, but it’s worth it.  If you don’t have raspberries nearby, you should make sure you know where the equivalent is and make sure that you take a break when it’s important so that the once-a-year opportunities don’t pass you by.