This is a Blogadda Wow Post.
You do know what they are, don’t you? The jelly beans Harry and his friends bought off the lunch trolley on the Hogwarts Express, the ones available in every conceivable flavour – Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – those are the ones I’m talking of.
“…. you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey-flavoured one once,” Ron had told Harry.
Life’s a box of Every Flavoured Beans - A risk with every mouthful. Share on XEach time you dip your hand into that striped little box you never know what you will draw.
Oh you can try and guess the flavour as you unwrap each one. However, you’ll find the wrappings are misleading. A rich golden one might enclose within it the darkest flavours while a simple unpretentious one might hold the very happiness your heart desires.
No matter how wise you get or how experienced, no matter how hard you try to pick and choose to get just the good ones, bad ones will find their way from your hand, to your mouth, into your life.
No one, not even the greatest magician, gets it right all the time. Remember how Dumbledore chanced upon a vomit flavoured one? So then what chance do mere muggles, stand?
However, does that mean you stop dipping into the box?
Not at all.
You try. And you try again, for these jelly beans are addictive, just as life. As did Dumbledore. He made a second attempt, remember? Only to end up with an ear-wax flavoured one! You’d think it would put him off for ever and yet I’m certain, when the box is passed around again, he’d be game for another try.
That’s just how it should be. You learn to enjoy the good ones and spit out the bad ones, as in life – you revel in the good days, tread carefully on the bad ones. No matter how Life treats you, you go on living, go on picking, go on sampling it, jelly bean by jelly bean, one experience after another, savouring each one, enjoying the unpredictability for that’s what makes it fun.
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This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda for the prompt ‘Life is a box of …’.
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I loved the analogy. It’s so perfect! And yes, I agree, I’m sure in-spite of his past experiences, Dumbledore is definitely not going to give up on them. 🙂
I thought it was perfect too. JK Rowling is a magician herself for coming up with such ideas. In fact when I went on to submit my entry I was sure many people would have written the same thing – it fits, right?
I loved going through your post 🙂 . Such a great and simple way to talk about life. I loved your blog. and yes I completely agree with you. Life is to be enjoyed mainly because of it unpredicatablility we don’t know what is going to happen next so may as well enjoy the good moments and wait for the bad ones to pass.
Neha
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Thank you Neha. Glad you enjoyed the post. It was a great prompt to begin with.
Ah! the first blog I read this morning, and its loaded with profoundness… Life is indeed a box of every flavour, loaded with variety.
Sometimes profoundness happens to me :-). Glad you liked it.
I am not Harry Potter girl , so this ‘all flavour beans’ is something new to me . But u very well connected it to life . Lets enjoy the unpredictable flavours of life .
Thanks Monika. Glad you liked the analogy. I love Harry Potter books for this reason alone – that they are much more than children’s fantasy books.
You correlated it so well. It’s so true that life is about trials and errors, we cant stop but move on
Thank you Manisha. Yes life is about trying new things, then accepting or rejecting them.
SO much loved the analogy Tulika. Unpredictable is fun yet risky. A lovely post.
Thanks Upasna. That’s what makes life fun.
Wow..what a simplified way to explain one of life’s best lessons…we all have good and bad days, moments..but letting the bad one’s go and cherishing the good one is what inspires us to keep going.
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Thank you Alpana. I thought it was quite apt too :-).
I loved the analogy, loved the title and the post.
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Thank you Dr Pooja.
A true-blue potterhead would agree that talking about these li’l elements of the book/movie brings back so many magical memories!!
I thought so too. When I saw the prompt this analogy jumped out at me. The Harry Potter series has so many things to love about it.
Remind me of of the quote from Forrest Gump: “My mom used to say, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you get”
That’s where the prompt came from ashwin. I love that one as well.
I recollected how we used to make faces when we got not so good to taste bean! But that means these not so good ones made a fantastic memory to savor!
WOW post indeed!
– Anagha From Team MocktailMommies
Have you read Piped Piper I Met
That’s right. Our memories are made of good as well as bad experiences.
This is so much better than what Forrest Gump said 🙂
Life is just like every flavor beans, indeed. I’ve had my share of chocolate and caramel flavored ones as well as the vomit and ear-wax ones. But I still keep going back, hoping for a rum flavored one soon 🙂
Ha ha Soumya – hope you get only rum-flavoured ones.
You caught my absolute attention with the first line “You do know what they are, don’t you? The jelly beans Harry and his friends bought…” How could i miss reading this when there is a harry potter element in it! And loved the ur perceptive and how u molded it from flavored beans to a life lesson. Life is simple but we all end up making it complicated! As u said You learn to enjoy the good ones and spit out the bad ones..Its as simple as that…
Ah ha – a fellow Potterhead. Glad to have met you.
Run from the things that don’t serve and embrace those that do.
That’s the thing to do :-).
It sure is, Tulika. But wouldn’t it be so boring if we didn’t have variety? 🙂
Oh yes, life’s fun when we have a variety of experiences.
Lovely analogy! I completely agree with everything that you wrote. My favourite being this.
“You learn to enjoy the good ones and spit out the bad ones, as in life – you revel in the good days, tread carefully on the bad ones. ”
That’s how life must really be enjoyed. I also loved Rachna’s example of Forrest Gump. That was one awesome movie with many life lessons.
Thank you for the kind words Rekha. Glad you agree.
So true, Tulika. You remember that Forrest Gump dialog: My mum always said life is a box of chocolates. You never know which one you are going to get. And hence, we go on our lives doing the best we can, hoping the find our favourite flavour and managing if we don’t.
Oh yes. That’s a sweet analogy – nicer than the one I picked! At least they are chocolates. But we cannot always get the ones we want, that’s only too true.
Wow! That’s so true.. we need to keep dipping and keep trying and savouring life. Beautiful analogy
Ah yes. That’s the only way to go forward in life.
Loved the analogy and agree with every bit of what you wrote here. We deal with the good and bad together and cannot do with just one!
Unfortunately, that’s true. The good comes with the bad.
What a sweet and profound post, Tulika. Loved reading it!:)
Thank you Mayuri.
It is such an interesting post. I loved the connection you have drawn between the flavours of the beans and situations in life…. indeed a WOW post!!!
Thank you for the kind words Prasanna.
What a lovely analogy! Sure life’s like picking up jelly beans – one after the other. Keeping what matters and spitting what doesn’t.
Thanks Parul. It is, isn’t it?
What a delightful post and a great take on the prompt for sure! The title itself is intriguing and I absolutely loved the analogy. 🙂
Thank you Shalini. Glad you liked it.
what a wonderful post 😀 I absolutely loved the analogy of all flavor beans. Indeed even Dumbleore couldn’t get it right. Life is exactly like that. Loved this thoughtful write 😀
Thanks Raj. I thought that was the most obvious one.
A nice take on the prompt… and I totally agree. In so many ways, JK Rowling really was just showing excellent metaphors on real life, wasn’t she? These stories seem so simple as a child reads them but you see the deeper themes as you grow up.
Absolutely right. That’s why we can read and re-read and also why they appeal to grown ups as much as they do to children. What a wonderful writer she is.
Yay! A Harry Potter reference! And an exciting one too! As long as I know that chocolate flavored bean exists in the box, I’ll take my chances! 🙂
That’s the best spirit in which one should approach life. Hope you get ONLY chocolates.