Don’t Let Your Ice Cream Melt

Hey team. All right, here we are, and it’s Wednesday. Wednesday, we love to do a little workshop and talk about some of the important stuff. It’s cool that January is upon us, and we’re entering our 25th year. So many cool things are taking place.

I read this little quote. I think it’s kind of funny, but it also has a powerful message behind it. It says, “Don’t let your ice cream melt while counting somebody else’s sprinkles.”

I don’t know about you, but as a kid, there’s always that one kid who’s out there saying, “But mommy, he’s got more sprinkles than I do on my doughnut or on my ice cream or on my cake.” Instead of enjoying what you have, you’re always looking at somebody else’s plate and counting their sprinkles.

Don’t let your ice cream melt.

Don’t let your day or your life become ruined because you think you have less than somebody else. Or that somebody else somehow got a better deal than you did. Be grateful for what you have.

As we enter this first month of a new year, I think it’s really important for us to internalize that concept or thought process that says, “I should be grateful.” I remember reading a quote by Shakespeare. I believe it was Shakespeare—that said, “I complained about having no shoes until I met a man with no legs.”

Nothing brings us a deeper understanding of how blessed we really are than meeting someone who might be struggling worse than we are. That shouldn’t bring us joy, but it should bring us understanding.

In life, we tend to always look at somebody else and say, “Oh wow, I wish I had.” Even my boys at Christmas time, coming into the season last month, were always saying, “I want this, I want that, I want, I want, I want.”

As a parent, for me, it’s not about whether my boys give me a gift that’s cool or expensive. It’s the same for my wife. Sometimes the best gifts are just the love that’s in the room and the relationships we’ve built.

As we get older, we start to recognize that. As parents, we want to give good gifts to our children. Sometimes the best gift we give them is the realization that they are blessed with what they have.

That’s an important thing for all of us to recognize. Don’t go through the rest of this year looking at the person driving a fancier car or at your neighbors, the Joneses or the Smiths, who have a new car in their driveway. Be happy for them, but don’t be upset that they have more sprinkles than you do. Be grateful for your sprinkles, or your ice cream will melt on you.

I know that when my little boy David was much younger—well, by much younger, I mean probably last year—he could easily get caught up in his phone or iPad. He could be holding a Dairy Queen ice cream in July when it’s 94 degrees outside, and it would start melting because he got immersed in the screen instead of focusing on the task at hand.

The task at hand was eating that ice cream and enjoying it before it got all over the seat in the car and made daddy a little upset. Focus on the job at hand, focus on the task at hand, and enjoy your ice cream.

God bless you guys. Have a wonderful Wednesday, enjoy the rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you next week.

Remember, let’s be valuable because nothing less will do. As always, I love to say this: God bless you, because I truly believe and pray for you as part of our Northwest Enforcement team, that God will truly bless you and your family this year. All right, talk to you next week.