Lessons from a pumpkin
It’s fall season, and everywhere are the beautiful leaves changing colour — from the bronze orange to a flaming red. While people think of fall as the season of comfy sweaters, hayrides, Thanksgiving turkey…
This also means that pumpkins are in season!
And I have definitely been eating my fill of pumpkin while I can :P
But who knew that pumpkins could teach me something, besides learning the best way to cook them? (For me, it’s the microwave cause it’s fast and easy, and also cost-efficient as a student)
Before being able to eat the pumpkin, you have to cut through the tough outer skin to get to the flesh and seeds. Then, you need to remove the seeds before cooking it, and either toss the seeds or roast them to eat separately. I usually cut the pumpkin into wedges and microwave them for 15–20mins on HIGH, before it’s soft enough (yet not burnt) for eating.
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During this process of prepping my pumpkin, I realised a few things:
- People are like pumpkins
Oftentimes, you need to get through their tough outer shell before really knowing them. As the saying goes “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, the same is with pumpkins — “Don’t judge a pumpkin by its skin”. The outside of the pumpkin may look smooth and beautiful, but be as tasteless as water; yet the other pumpkin that’s kind of bumpy and disfigured, may be the sweetest pumpkin you’ve tasted. As in life, we shouldn’t judge people based on first impressions alone. A lot can be discerned from a quick glance, I agree — but to truly know and understand someone, you need to take the time to learn about them, ask them who they are as a person, to gain an insight into their souls and personalities. Then, and truly then, will you be able to decide honestly if someone is worth a friendship/relationship, and know that you at least made the effort to get to know them on a deeper level, instead of dismissing them based on first encounters.
2. Good things take time
Just as removing the seeds manually by hand takes a bit of effort, it’s worth it all in the end. To be able to eat the pumpkin flesh seed-free, knowing you’re not going to accidentally crunch into one or choke on it. Similarly, sometimes life throws you curveballs and lemons, and it seems like the hoops you have to jump through in order to reach the end destination is endless. But after patiently working your way through it, one step at a time, you realise that the end is worth all that pain and effort. Life can be bleak oftentimes, and a right pain in the ass (much like those pesky pumpkin seed skins that refuse to come out) — but at the end of the tunnel, the light will be there, no matter how dim it seems. There will always be some positive outcome, no matter what. Just keep going — and just keep working on those pumpkin seeds, one kernel at a time.
So, the next time you’re preparing a pumpkin for a meal, remember that this beautiful orange vegetable has a tale to tell, and that makes it all the more sweeter to savour.
