Apples & Oranges

Someone I follow on Twitter recently tweeted this analogy, which I thought made perfect sense... at least when I managed to wrap my brain around it.

Basically it comes down to this: if you have oranges and want apples, then you have to find someone who has apples and wants oranges. To further the oranges metaphor, let's say that people are like oranges. If you squeeze an orange, what comes out? The juice inside. Similarly, if you put someone under pressure, what comes out? What's inside; their true colours.

The apples & oranges part can be applied to relationships. It makes no sense chasing someone who's looking for a bowl of cherries when you have a sack of oranges. You can't give what you don't have. You either have to throw all your perfectly good oranges away and go pluck some cherries. Getting cherry trees to grow in an orange orchard can be quite a task and may take a long time. Alternatively, wait until someone who really wants your lovely oranges comes around; they may just have some juicy apples to exchange.

Similarly, don't settle for sour grapes when what you really want are some deliciously sweet apples. Don't take what you don't want, otherwise people are going to think you really want sour grapes and just continue to give you more of it.

Does that make sense? I hope so...