Flightster

Tomatoes and Personal Growth

• by Colin Wright
• on January 27th, 2011
• 3 Comments

Let me tell you a story about me and tomatoes.

Or rather, my relationship with tomatoes.

Actually, my FORMER relationship with tomatoes. Things have changed.

For most of my life, I’ve had this extreme aversion to the little red beasts, and the very smell of a ripe tomato or word ‘tomato’ would lead to cringing and gagging and picking tidbits of them out of my food. Any chunk big enough to be removed was fair game, and I would need to remove them before I could safely start consuming.

The thing is: I didn’t even know what a tomato tasted like.

It sounds strange, I know, but I hadn’t eaten a tomato in so many years that I didn’t have an accurate memory of the last time I tasted or chewed one, and though I was SURE I hated them, I couldn’t be certain why. A texture issue, perhaps. Or just the idea of them. Or maybe I subscribed to the old-fashion notion that red fruits were poisonous (turns out it was just the lead flatware they were using, leaching poison into their food, but still).

In any case, I wasn’t a fan, but it was an irrational thing and I knew this.

And then I made my big decision to pick up my business and get rid of almost everything I owned in order to travel the world.

So many things that had seemed impossible up until that point were suddenly VERY possible, and upon realizing that the first country I was set to visit (Argentina) was rife with tomatoes, I decided that I would break my pattern of tomato-hatred.

I would LOVE tomatoes if it was the last thing I did.

I tried a few different methods, but the one I found to be most useful was social reinforcement.

Any time I would go out for food, I would tell the person I was with the story of how I hated tomatoes all my life, but now I loved them. I’d then order something with tomatoes on it and take a great big bite to illustrate the point. Mmmm.

At first it was all I could do to hide my grimace. I didn’t like the texture and I still had that reflexive cringe going on, so I imagine more than one person in those first few weeks thought that the sandwich I was eating was pretty terrible, or the pizza I was partaking in was less-than-excellent.

But after a little while I began to appreciate the taste of a tomato in my sandwich. I remember the first time I ordered tomatoes on my sandwich when there was no one else around. As I took a bite I stopped and realized what a victory it was that I was able to overcome such a silly-but-ingrained habit.

Since then I’ve been able to repeat this process with many other foods that I didn’t particularly care for, from squash to curry to pork to peppers. I’ll eat them all, now, and I’ve been able to set my sights even higher, moving beyond foods.

I’ve always hated tourist attractions, but in slowly making myself go to them when friends visit me in the different countries I live in, I’ve been able to find some fun in the experience. I’m not crazy about TV, but by always having a TV series to watch from time-to-time, I’ve become more fluent in pop culture and have enjoyed some really amazing story arcs and acting, to boot.

The point is that by challenging my dislikes and seeing if I can break them down, I’ve grown as a person and improved my life.

This is ESPECIALLY true when I travel, because everyone has preconceived notions about how life and people and food and government and culture and whatever is in another country, but we’re acting on very questionable information. Sure, you may THINK you hate Chinese food because the ‘Chinese food’ you’ve had in the past has upset your stomach, but you may head to China and find you love everything.

That is, unless you don’t allow yourself to do so because you already ‘know’ that you don’t like Chinese food.

Oh how much life we miss out on when we put ourselves in boxes!

Leave yourself open to try new things and challenge your expectations.

You’ll never be unpleasantly surprised when you stick to things that you know you like, but you’ll never be pleasantly surprised, either.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.