The trap of packaging 4

I have a friend who wraps the gifts she gives with exquisite paper and elaborate bows.  They are a thing to behold.  Many times the wrapping is better than the gift inside.  I am a lousy gift wrapper.  If you placed my gift next to my friend’s gift, you’d always go for her gift first because hers just looks like it going to be good.  Meanwhile, my simply-wrapped gift goes untouched even though I do give thoughtful, useful, all-around great gifts even when they are thrifty.  (This always happnes when I participat ein Yankee swaps.)

Remember folks that:

In the quest for love – or just even a date – people miss each other because they want their romance wrapped in a particular package.  They know the height they want and the weight and the color and the type of hair and they won’t look outside of these trappings to the gift within.

Remember folks that:

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  The package is not the gift and

  
  
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  The icing is not the cake and

  
  
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  The cover of the book is not the story.

  
  
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  You have to open the package to find the glory.

Goodness, kindness, joy, honor, humor, strength, and others of these most important attributes come from within and they come from all the faces, races, ages, stages, neighborhoods and livelihoods of our human tribe and that’s no jive.

Remember folks that:

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  Pretty is as pretty does and

  
  
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  Handsome is as handsome lives and

  
  
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  The proof of the pudding is in the eating*

  
  
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  Not in the package.

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*According to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, the phrase dates back to at least 1615 when Miguel de Cervantes published Don Quixote. In this comic novel, the phrase is stated as, “The proof of the pudding is the eating.”