Have you ever faced that Christmas chocolate box dilemma? You know the one – those fancy chocolates you only buy during the holidays, but the little guide that tells you what’s inside has mysteriously vanished. We’ve all been there, staring down at those enticing wrappers, wondering which one conceals delight and which hides disappointment.
Every time I experience that ‘chocolate box lucky dip’ moment, I’m reminded of that famous line from Forrest Gump about life being like a box of chocolates. And it truly is – full of sensory delights and occasional horrors, often arriving unexpectedly because somewhere along the way, you misplaced that helpful little guide.
“But Andy,” I hear you thinking, “life doesn’t come with a handy slip of paper! If only it did!”
You’re absolutely right – it doesn’t arrive with instructions pointing towards good choices and steering you away from poor ones. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t create your own guide.
Sounds tricky, I know, but it can be done, and more easily than you might think, because you have a bountiful bank of experience to draw on.
Take that Christmas chocolate box. While you mightn’t know precisely what’s inside each wrapper, you’ve eaten chocolates before (no denying it).
You know that hard chocolates often have chewy centres like toffee. Orange wrappers typically contain orange-flavoured centres, while pink ones usually hide strawberry or maybe raspberry. When you give one a gentle squeeze and it starts to crack, it likely has a soft centre; if it remains firm, expect something harder. You don’t know for sure what’s behind the wrapper, but you can make an informed guess.
Life’s opportunities present themselves similarly. Your past experiences help build a picture of how present and future experiences might ‘taste’ and whether you’ll enjoy them. You recognise the ‘wrapping’ – the people involved, surrounding circumstances, locations. You know which led to positive outcomes and which to negative ones.
By paying attention to how each opportunity presented itself and how it turned out, you’ve begun creating your guide.
It’s not foolproof, certainly. You might still seize a moment that proves disappointing. But with each experience, you refine your understanding, becoming more informed, more resilient, and better equipped to choose wisely next time.
Just as you learn which chocolates please your palate and which don’t, you learn which opportunities lead to experiences you value. And just as you wouldn’t deliberately choose a chocolate you know will make you retch, you should decline opportunities you recognise won’t take you where you want to go.
No, life doesn’t arrive with a manual guiding you through choices as you pursue your adventure. But it offers clues. Your job is to notice them, understand their meaning, and use them to guide future decisions.
Each new choice reveals more clues. As your bank of knowledge grows, each decision becomes more informed, each outcome less random and more intentional.
So next time you face a choice or opportunity, pause. Take a breath. Remember that instinct alone isn’t always reliable. Ask yourself: what do my past experiences tell me about this choice? You won’t always find a clear answer, and sometimes you’ll still need to make a leap of faith. But most times, you’ll find the guidance you need to step forward confidently, knowing the outcome you hope for is likely the one you’ll receive.
Life may be like a box of chocolates, but with experience as your guide, you need never bite into another coffee cream again.
