An Important Life Lesson

No matter how long we live, we won't be able to be or accomplish everything we want.  Human potential will never be fully realized in mortality.

I knew this when, despite hours spent bouncing a baseball off of our garage door while fantasizing about winning spectacular victories in the World Series, I recognized that I would probably never be drafted to pitch for the Dodgers.

It was painfully clear when, having been called to serve in the Switzerland Zürich Mission and having (naturally) resolved to try every kind of Swiss cheese and chocolate that existed during my stay there, I went into the Migros supermarket in Interlaken, saw an entire aisle with chocolate bars on both sides, and realized that there were several major brands (with multiple flavors each) that Migros didn't even carry.

The point was driven deeper home when I began to understand that practically every Swiss village and valley produces its own variety of cheese.  I was given the figure of thirteen hundred (1300) different kinds.

Despair.  Utter hopelessness.

And I hadn't even begun to sample the various forms of yogurt yet, and of müesli.

For this life, though, Toblerone is pretty good, and easily available, fresh.  Genuine Swiss Emmentaler cheese is far better than the waxy "Swiss cheese" produced in the United States, but there are scores of other excellent kinds (raclette, Gruyere, etc., etc.) that, with a good bread (which is easier to find in America than it once was), make for a wonderful lunch.  The best yogurt I've ever tasted was a peach melba that came from one specific little yoghurt-maker in Zürich; I'll probably never taste it again, since I can't even remember the place's name, but the memory lingers.  And, oddly, of the commercial müeslis in Switzerland, I liked the Migros store brand best of all.  But American granola is okay.