I recently entered the grocery store to do my usual grocery shopping. I am a big fan of Sainsbury’s in the UK and have been frequenting them since I was a young schoolboy. I also have a mighty nectar card, which allows me to accumulate points on Sainsbury’s and various other retailers, and these points serve as important supplements to my humble financial existence. I therefore know Sainsbury’s rather well and am very familiar with the items on offer. I like beef, and I usually get one of those lean diced beef packets and accompany them with the meal deal mushroom stir-fry, as I love mushrooms. Not only are these items delicious (especially when combined), they are also very easy to make. Just oil the saucepan, fry them for a little while, and then it is all done. Nothing could be easier, though it did challenge me initially to get around these little culinary tricks (my cooking skills are POOR). On this occasion, however, they had run out of my beloved diced beef and mushroom stir-fry to my total dismay. These items are very popular and it is no surprise that they should have been sold out. But for me, it was a total disruption to my usual routine, as these were my favourite combination of food. ‘How could I live without them?’ was my immediate reaction. I had to do my grocery anyhow and so I started looking around the shelves. I noticed that they were some similar items on offer (they usually place items of the same type(s) on the same shelves), and quite reluctantly I decided to go for romp beef steak and vegetable stir-fry instead, which looked very similar to my usual items but were not exactly what I wanted. I therefore came home disappointed and was not particularly looking forward to my meals, not with the same level of enthusiasm as I would towards my beloved diced beef and mushroom stir-fry. I prepared the meal that evening and it tasted surprisingly delicious. The romp steak actually tasted richer than diced beef and the vegetable stir-fry tasted very nice even without my beloved mushrooms. I was very impressed by this new combination and decided to purchase them again the next time I went shopping. What this little grocery adventure taught me was that sometimes (many times, in fact) in life we don’t get what we want. We are left disappointed, frustrated, in agony over what could have been our dream, our heaven, our perfect life. Yet when we are forced to settle for something else, who knows what that may bring? It may bring something worse, as we would expect, but it may bring something better. The disappointments of life may lead us to the secrets of life. Please don’t let the difficulties of life bring you down, and above all don’t give up.